Forgive me for my silence

Just that

My mouth has only ever been good

For ******* things up

I know

The cherry pie you baked your heart into

Still tasted like the lucky side of copper

I know all that sweet

Is the only way to keep it down

I know you might think you deserve this

You don't

These scars are not some secret cuneiform

There are no answers waiting

In the long nights you wish would just end

What we all keep forgetting

Is there is always a place of rest

You can rest here

In my silence I am still learning that

Still learning how to properly hold people

Still trying to get my timing right

Because

When is it ever really a good time

To say I love you

I know we’ve all been told

These types of things get easier

But even if they did

I wouldn’t want them to

We are supposed to be complicated

Like my awkward silence

While staring you down in a parking lot

Wondering again

Why I didn’t say what I was thinking

If you wanted to know

I was thinking

My hands have only ever been good for squeezing

And my heart has only ever been good for pumping

And my mouth has only ever been good

For ******* things up

So forgive me

Just that I wanted to keep you here

A little longer

**** defining heartbreak

Because in the lifetime it takes to forgive yourself for

Not learning to let go sooner

You could have learned to pray backwards

Pulling god inside like an inhale

And keeping him there

Emily could have learned that

After her father left

It is the memories she held on to

That really made her lonely

Every room is an empty room at some point

Just like her throat some days

Felt like a hallway

Stretching like a bad dream to keep

The moans in

She knows sometimes

You gotta let it out

Her shrapnel soul

Is practiced in picking up the pieces

How some days you have to pluck out the shards

Despite the pain

She knows that if she doesn’t

The jagged bits of breath

Still stuck in all the wrong spots

Will fester

She knows

She’ll probably never get to breathe deeper than this

So she counts breaths like steps till she hits her limit

And then she waits

For someone to tell her it’s okay

To cry in public

Again

So **** defining heartbreak

Because you could have learned

To pray backwards by now

Taking in god like an inhale

And keeping him there

Long enough for the pain to stop

The Grand Canyon
Was once a shallow river bed
Until the water wore away the earth
So far down that when you look over the edge
Many have the urge to jump

When you leave this planet

As you rise

You’ll see

Waterfalls are really mountains
Weeping your departure
Tears enough to make oceans

The thought of your ghost
Quakes the earth in shivers
At the imbalanced caused
By your missing weight

You are that important

Tornadoes are just the sky’s
Way of funneling your soul back down
To the ground where you belong

But we both know

You’ll never stay

If the earth is not strong enough to keep you here
Can’t imagine there is any way
I ever could

I could never mourn
As loud as thunder
I don’t have lightning defribillators

And
I don’t sleep at night
Because I am used to sinking to the left

Your weight is that significant

And yeah
Sometimes the earth wins
Tidal waves
And earthquakes
Even tornadoes claim people

But not you

Not when you leave on your own accord
Not when you have the urge to jump
Making mountains weep
And the sky mourn thunder

i imagine you are
here,
even now,
in this air.

it's funny,
being a child,
how you conjure up
people that
understand,
people that won't
let you down
until that
one final
reckoning.

i have felt that
reckoning before,
met it with those
eager eyes of youth
but i feel older than
usual, older than i think
i should.

i know that i am feeling
and not feeling.
i know that i am alive
and not alive,
yet somehow i hope,
and only hope.

i will ask you if that
is enough.
you will say
"yes."

It sneaks up on
It makes you miserable
It pushes away your friends
It pushes away your family
It will drive you crazy
It make you think your not worth anything
You can fight it but it always wins
You can run from it but it will always catch you
You don't even want to get out of bed
You don't want to eat
You don't want to carry on
Medication just numbs it
You will feel like a zombie
It can make you cry
It can make you angry
It can make the best of us doubt
It can break you
It haunt you
Its a child
Its a mother
Its a grandfather
Its your brother
Its your sister
Its your best friend
Its you but most of all
Its me
Its the person in the checkout lane who looks like their world has ended
Its the man that has the tears in his eye
Its the teenage girl who holds her head down
Its grandmother who was at one time a joy to be around
and this disease will eat you
It will bring you to your knees
It can take your life
It is called Depression

the house next door makes me
sad.
both man and wife rise early and
go to work.
they arrive home in early evening.
they have a young boy and a girl.
by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house
are out.
the next morning both man and
wife rise early again and go to
work.
they return in early evening.
By 9 p.m. all the lights are
out.

the house next door makes me
sad.
the people are nice people, I
like them.

but I feel them drowning.
and I can't save them.

they are surviving.
they are not
homeless.

but the price is
terrible.

sometimes during the day
I will look at the house
and the house will look at
me
and the house will
weep, yes, it does, I
feel it.

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
******
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

she's young, she said,
but look at me,
I have pretty ankles,
and look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
o my god,
I thought it was all working,
and now it's her again,
every time she phones you go crazy,
you told me it was over
you told me it was finished,
listen, I've lived long enough to become a
good woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
you need to be tortured, don't you?
you think life is rotten if somebody treats you
rotten it all fits,
doesn't it?
tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
*******?
and my son, my son was going to meet you.
I told my son
and I dropped all my lovers.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I'M IN LOVE,
and now you've made a fool of me. . .
I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.
hold me, she said, will you please hold me?
I've never been in one of these things before, I said,
these triangles. . .
she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had
a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,
centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and
sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no creature living as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.