She's mid-breath when she
Takes the glass and
Splashes the water down her face;
She buries her head in a grave,
In a ground made of
Flannel, speckled with puddles.
Her hands ***** at the electric
Fence, and her fingers
Spasm and grasp and clench tight.
The sides of her back are butterfly
Wings, that flutter
With every gasp and shutter.
Her hair is the dark sky above her,
That hugs her red eyes
With fingers that sparkle thin white.

I've got nothing to say, so I say
It all; I ramble
Until her shudders are giggles --
The eclipse passes and the sun
Is in the night sky, Licking
Up and reflecting the sky specks.

So I'll put the lit up flakes on her
Already red nose,
And let the clouds dry up.

Dear Sammy,
I pray one day you'll read this and realize how far away you are from me.
I'm staring at the comic strip you drew for me on my birthday three years ago. You wrapped a jumbo Hershey's Bar in it and left it next to my backpack at school. I remember when my birthday used to mean something to you. I remember playing with you when we were three and four years old and dressing you up in my tutus and lipstick. I remember when you were my little brother.
I don't know who you are anymore.
You've been falling apart for so long and I tried my best to fix you. I should've done more, I should've told somebody. When you told me you wanted to **** yourself, I should've called your mother. But I tried to help you myself and I gave you attention and now that's all you want.
You still tell people you want to **** yourself. I know now that you just want attention. One day I fear you'll stop getting it and you'll actually **** yourself and I will fall to my knees and tear my hair out and wail and scream because you are so young and in so much pain and you tried so hard to leave me behind and now you've finally succeeded.
Now all you do is find girls and cheat on them and smoke and drink and swear and fight and you left Jesus and your big sister and your best friend in the chaos behind you and we cannot keep up. We've stopped trying. You don't want to listen. We don't want to talk. We just want you.
I haven't had a conversation with you in 3 years. I see you every ******* day and I talk to you and you hug me but you don't even see me anymore. And I don't know who I see anymore.
You have so much promise. So much talent. You are so smart. Sam, I love you so much. We all do. And despite what you think, your father does too.
I miss you. I've lost you and maybe it's my fault, maybe I should've done something more. But now you're too far gone, you've denied every shadow of your pain and therefore I cannot help you heal it.
I pray for you now. I pray for the little boy who I ate Mac and cheese with and built forts with. I pray for the star musician, for the painter, for the writer.
I pray for the boy who is killing his body and suffocating his heart and abandoning his family.

Sammy, please come home.

I love to use words and write
About her. There's so much.

How her lips curl and dance up
Into her smile, or how --
The deep brown in her curls drips
Onto her cheeks in soft freckles -- and
Her deep brown eyes pour into thick
Eyelashes and beneath them --
All her real beauty blossoms

But she can't be captured in words;
Angels were never meant for them.
But I try anyways.

Love inspires stupid things.

Occasionally I wonder
If He ever hears my cries
Then I begin to wonder
If I'll ever meet His eyes

Occasionally I wonder
If He ever hears my prayers
Did Jesus ever feel like
He was falling down the stairs?

Mnyamata
I'm not promising you I will marry you. I can't promise you that. We could break up, meet other people, things between us could go wrong, one of us could die or move away. **** happens. So when I say I'm going to marry you, I'm not promising. I'm telling you that I believe I will. That I want to SO badly my heart breaks every night I fall asleep without you. That I will do everything I can to make this last at least 3 more years until we can legally belong to each other. When I say I'm going to marry you, that isn't a promise. Those wedding vows I wrote a few months ago aren't a promise either, they are a rough draft. In the way that this relationship is a rough draft for a marriage. We can't promise to marry each other, we can just wait and wait and wait and wait. And then we can marry each other.
And maybe 3 years is too soon and one or both of us won't be ready yet. Maybe we'll need more time to be separate together, to be individuals in love, before we become a unit. Maybe. But maybe not. I can't promise you that either. And you can't promise me anything. Maybe we'll get married, maybe we won't. Maybe it'll be in 3 years, maybe in 6. I don't care. As long as God does what he wants for us, and we do what He wants for us, I know we'll be okay.
I desperately want to marry you and I'm going to try my hardest to make it happen, but I can't promise you it will. But that isn't a bad thing.

After all, I can promise that I am wickedly, pathetically, outrageously in love with you.

Ndimakukonda

If I were to speak I would stutter
From fear, from tears, I couldn't utter -
A sound
In my head, that I never heard
Gunshots, gunshots
Hanging on every word
****** fountains
Mystery
Don't think there'll be more school for me
Raining on my brothers wedding
Crying, crying
Sun is setting
White dress -
Hoodie, stained with red
New life begins
Another ends