It's been a year since
the water took you
or the sky took you
or you just went away.
I don't know which
but I know that you're gone.
I remember the first time we met.
I told you that your name sounded like it should be a character in
Harry Potter.
You knew just what I meant.
Little did I know in that moment
that you'd become
one of the greatest characters
I'd meet in my life.
See here's the thing:
I've always been scared of death.
Of how it takes
and never gives a single ****
for what it leaves behind,
for who it leaves behind.
And now after another winter's passed
I sometimes think of how
I never got to thank you,
Of how she never got to love you,
Not fully
and of how I can't seem
to look at a river the same
or how I don't think I ever will.
I don't know how to write
a eulogy, nor am I trying to
But I also don't know how to
say goodbye to that
laugh of laughs or a soul
that shone so bright.
So here's a poem, Rup-
A year late and a goodbye short.

There's something
You should know
But I'm not telling you
Most nights
This past week
I've gone to bed
In arms that are
Not yours
And it's making me
Happy
The operative word
Of my life right
Now is "should"
I should feel bad
For this
But I don't
I should tell you
The truth
But I'm not
I should speak
Instead of write
But it's all I know to do
I should stop
But I don't want to
I should
Yet here I am
Swimming in a
Sea of doubt
While you lay alone
In a bed of
Unanswered questions
Questions
I should answer
Because you should know
I know what I am doing
I know what I should do

I heard a quote once that
Said something along the
Lines of you should always
Give someone a second chance
But never give them a third
And I gave you so many
So many second and third
And fourth and fifth chances
Because you really were
My best friend so now
When I sit and think about it,
Which I'm clearly doing now,
When I'm missing you
Because even though I
Don't like you, I really
Truly don't anymore,
I do miss you and the times
With you no one else
Could ever understand;
But when I really think about
The why and the how
And the chances
I just hope one day that
You can see this world
Is not out to get you,
That you are beautiful
But behind that there's
A girl so mean she
Sometimes scares love away.
You really were my best friend.

I know what a skydiver feels like,
though I've never actually jumped from a plane
because with you I feel I'm skydiving.
Free falling, chutes failed
Crashing into your arms, into my world-
Yearning for the touch that grounds me
better than this planet ever has or could or will.
And in your eyes I see an ocean
One I plan to swim forever, trusting that
the water will be warm and the waves never too rough.
But it's in your soul that I find home,
in a space made just for me,
the one that waited, patiently waited-
Knowing only I would fit.

There's a picture in the hope chest
or in a box buried beneath
a pile of unworn clothes at
the end of Mom's bed;
there's a picture somewhere
of me decked out in
purple floral footed pajamas
And in this picture, which must
have been taken one Christmas
night-
my hair slicked and wet and ponytailed,
in this picture I'm sitting
in front of a tree that
Dad chopped down.
a tree intricately and precisely decorated,
a tree with one strand of tinsel
on each and every branch,
a tree from the days we still used
the big bulbs of every color
that begged to burn your house down.
In this picture,
in front of that tree,
in floral footed purple pajamas-
I'm smiling.
This year there is no picture.
This year there was no Christmas.

I have a favor I must ask
of you, and only you:
I need your body back,
your flesh, your warmth.
Your arms wrapped around me,
holding me tight, pulling me in-
silently speaking the words
"you're mine,
I'm your's. We are safe."
because baby, I have
a confession to make
I wrote poems in your
skin that you don't know
I left there.
You see my dear,
I tucked my quiet rhymes
behind your ears for
times I knew you'd
need to hear my words
so soft and sweet,
My words: I love you
My words: I am here
My words: I am not going anywhere.
(Little did I know you would.)
                    •••
I hid similies and metaphors
in the nooks and crooks
of your elbows and knees
because poetry must be just as
good an oil as any for a
twenty-eight year old tin man right?
****, I don't know
but that's where they fit,
where they were meant to go.
                    •••
The first time our bodies connected,
our forces colliding just like
The Milky Way and Andromeda
will in four billion years-
my universe aligning with yours
as we lay in the grass
you and I both whispered:
"This is wrong."
For the first time on
that summer night I wrote
my words secretly into your skin.
My words: "How can something
wrong feel so right?"
                    •••
Baby, I'm looking for home and
I know you're looking for a heart
so here's mine-
written in words on your flesh
that you don't know are there.
Here's mine-
to fill your dark cavern
because no heart should be dark,
no heart a cavern.
Here's mine-
my throbbing, beating mess of a heart
filled with everyone I've ever loved
and there you are on top.
                    •••
Then came the days
without "I love you."
On those days,
with my fingertips frostbitten
and trying to text,
I wrote my words on scraps
of paper, turned them into airplanes,
and aimed in your direction
hoping that maybe,
just maybe,
their tips would pierce your skin
injecting the warmth I once received.
                    •••
To the man I used to love,
You can keep your body
and all the words I wrote in
places I wanted you to look
and hoped you wouldn't miss.

“Dad is drunk.”

you say it again.

“Dad is drunk.”

D, what a harsh letter

for such a harsh sound.

“Dad is drunk.”

Words he cannot even 

say because 
he
is too drunk

and a liar.

“Dad is drunk.”

And every time 

you see that blue

or silver or red can,

every time you

see it you hear

its crunch in his

hand, his lips slurping

down the poison that

killed your family tree.

“Dad is drunk.”

Every time you say

those three words,

three words you

have heard far more

times in your

twenty-one years than

those other three words,

every time nothing changes.

“Dad is drunk.” Again.

What else is new?