the colors were still bright
and i could hear the sun
and draw my deepest thoughts with chalk
i didn't want for anyone
hop-scotch on the driveway
chasing runaway ***** down the hill
hide-and-seek 'til we got called in for lunch
then right back outside to chase a thrill
the most i feared
in my younger years
was being kissed by bumble bees
mixing potions with the berries
we picked from climbing trees
if we missed a knot and skipped a step
a cartooned bandaid would pay our debt
or a push-pop from the freeze
we were reckless with our hearts
and our minds got off with ease
the worst of it
that we might get
was strawberries on our knees

i've watched you die one thousand times
in one hundred different ways

still, i can't decide which is worse
what my mind creates at night,
or, what we found that day

this reoccurring theme of mine,
all that i've catastrophized,
comes out at night to play

sometimes, my mind
makes me watch you die -

a masochistic gift for me

sometimes, it's that i know you'll die
and i can't warn of what i see

once i dreamt you faked your death
to prove our lack of care
you didn't even tell your best friend, Steve
he was just as confused and unaware
"i knew it! you guys don't love me"
you screamed, as i stood there

my mind still fights the guilt i have
but it rears its ugly head

i woke up on my 25th birthday
crying, from the torments of my bed

the dreams that make me pause the most
are where you live
but you're not you

you're angry, and hurt, and you're like a child
and you won't calm down to speak to me
and i don't know what to do

but i know why i have that dream
it's my soul's decline of guilt

because if that's what we saved you for
our lives couldn't have been rebuilt

my mind wanders to that night
staring down the stairs

it's my mind and it pleads with me:
it's better we weren't there

I knew you were there —
knuckles resting like they didn’t know what to do.
I heard your breath through the wood.

You almost knocked. I felt it —
the air pulling back,
the hush flexing its muscles.

I almost opened the door. I felt that too —
the lock daring me to turn it,
the weight of the air leaning hard against my chest.

But neither of us moved.

We just stood there —
two statues pretending not to be waiting —
except I heard you breathing.
And I know you heard me too.