When I was eleven I came home
with a piece of paper
back then I knew
how much those five letters  
would determine how much
you were worth
and as a kid, I felt pretty
worthless
there was a time I remember
before the paper
where all I would do
was draw

Mountains fascinated me
and that’s what I drew
all the time, mountains
I drew them with snow caps-
Without snow caps
I drew trees at the foot of them
Plaster a setting sun in the distance
Made them look like teeth
And a road came from them
Leading nowhere but to you

I was eleven
When I tasted the value
Of myself
Slapped across my cheek
Like a tattoo
And the first word
To be printed on me
For everyone to see;
Failure

And they all knew that
Was true
I could never turn my mountains
Into Everests
My trees into the Amazon Basin
Or my lakes into the Atlantic
And I ran through the world;
A blank piece of paper,
All of a sudden everybody had
A reason to use a sharpie

I’ll never be able
To make my mountains
Into Himalayas

And I can never stop them from
Using their Sharpies,
After a while your skin color
Doesn’t matter anymore
What they see on you is a story
And they can tell me what they think
But they’ve never seen my back
The things that I’ve carved on to the
surface of my spine
She feels them sometimes when we
have ***
trying to figure out where the period
ends.

I write you out
Give voice to the silence
I would talk about it out loud
An injustice though, for those unfamiliar
With loss
You hear the words
But do not feel them
Cradled arms hold close and tight
To memories full of soul deep and light
You brought so much joy
Jeremiah
Your name still feels whole on my lips
Life is always a stage
Some would say yours was a tragedy
I know better
An epic drama full of love, adventure
Comic relief
When the despair becomes unbearable
That is what I cling to
My oasis amid drought
A light house beaming bright
During storms raging against rocky shores
I'm still afloat with our laughter
I'm still afloat

Please don't misunderstand me
I know this had to be done, things
were growing more rotten by the day
and sudden amputation was our only choice, but

I still feel you, like
fingers grazing skin, I feel you
like a heart that never left this chest
I still feel you, and

Though we had to cut away
the decayed flesh of what is
I am still trapped, thinking about
what was, and what could have been

My heart is still full of tomorrows
and I need you to know
I will never love again, not the way I loved you
never that way

Each path before, led me to you  
but somewhere we took a detour
and I can't stop thinking; Is this the way it ends?
is this the way true love was meant to die?

Severed limb and bleeding heart?
I am only human, and there is a limit
to how much pain I can endure
and even though you're gone

*I can still feel you beating in my chest

White bed sheet
Strangely picked wallpapers
White eyes, white eyes
Die
Army and explosives
Molotov never did taste this sweet
Yellow lights, beware of God
Pray for us sinners? No ---
Let Mary Jane sing
the sonnet alone
Let Marionette
see your death
Believe her, believe her
No Jesus would be
Stop praying the Rosary, stop it
Don't you want to puke when you hear
Hail Mary? Führer! Führ---
You live like Cleopatra
whose tongue was a cobra
whose eyes were the black swans
on the lake where you first
drown
yourself. Are you Narcissus?
I am an echo
An echo not Echo
The smell of rain won't ever
Won't ever
Won't ever
Won't ever

Peeled toad's skin
Like an apple's
The Cs are not enough; Never ---
Crescent moon
Cat's sad eye, another blind
I miss you

What happens when
the muse runs out,
when they fly
& you're left empty,
to fend for yourself,
writing words for nobody.