You broke my heart today.
I worked your words around my mouth
And spit them out,
Each one a traitor to my tongue.

It’s funny how a dark red wine mood
Can shatter one’s bones.
Maybe this would hurt
If the neuropathy hadn’t set in
So heavy.
You know the numbness so well
It’s as if you feel it yourself.

I’m glad you’re free of grief
But the pain
The pain
You breathe it like fire
All of us alight in the heat of its flame.

I caught you in a dead faint
And set you on your feet again.
You’re not who you used to be
But still, you’re my sister.
That has to count for something.

Now we choose
The fights to fight
The end is nigh,
A coming night.

Now we break
Our jagged vow
Unspoken word,
An unwiped brow.

Now we cast
Our eyes aground
We break our hearts
To prove the sound.

Now we scream
Or hold our breath
We live our lives
Or die our death.

I’m eating this cake
Your homemade fruitcake
And it’s something, alright.
Bitter and sour,
Like rye bread with cherries.

The holidays are never easy
And this year is a testament to
The sour
Bitterness
That’s grown between us
Dark with sweet icing
And made with love beneath the dense
Thick
Dry
Cake
That makes up your smile
And mine, too.

A homemade fruitcake
Ripe for the picking.

I lick my fingers.

Delicious.

This is how it happens
Obsession then compulsion
Humming humming, jet propulsion
Palms to temples, heat emulsion

Pulling at the thread pulling at the
Thread pulling at the
Thread pulling
At the
thread
Thread pulling at until there’s

nothing in my head
Nothing in my
Head nothing in my
Empty underfed
Head
Nothing in my head

I’m just pulling at the thread

Pulling pulling

Pulling at the

At the thread
Pulling pulling at

Until
It
Stops.

Thank you for your steady breaths
And thank you for your weight
Thank you for your patience -
I do come in so late.

An overgrown aloe plant
Threatens to topple headlong
From her too-small resting place.
Reaching, as she does,
Reaching her tendril-like fingers
To the sun,
She bends and leans against the dining room window.

For herself, the sun is a casual riser this morning.
Rusty peaches and plums streak the sky,
A line here and there standing out among the hazy morning.
Cloudy today, supposedly, but clear and bright in these early hours.

It looks cold out there,
even the sunrise tints her paintbrush with frost,
And the naked trees slash dramatically black against the increasingly pastel background.
No wind. The leaves are still.

I take this moment and secretly fold it behind my ear
To visit among the noise of the day
To breathe in like a cigarette,
out like a sigh.