I can count to ten now
wanna see?
1 precious daughter from above
2 eyes that catch my gaze
3 handwritten letters I read most every day
4ever sounds kinda nice
5 hours total we've spent together
6 strings on the guitar I play for you
7 surgeries I waited to hear if you were ok
8 at night till 6 in the morning
9 simple songs I wrote about you
10 hour long phone calls
But you taught me more than math
You taught about love

I returned home

on Palm Sunday

to find knockout roses

behind my brick mailbox

parading their first blossoms of spring.

I found candytuft

faded to green,

safeguarding scattered sprinkles of white

for me to view one more day.

Fallen pink petals from dogwood trees

fluttered through a whimsical ballet

to entertain me on a ballroom floor

of Kentucky bluegrass.

Dogwoods, azalea, and periwinkle are different.
Something happened 
while I was away,
while I snapped photographs

of starfish captured by the sand

when evening tide

quickly rolled out to sea.


Blossoms opened

as other petals
faded and fell.

Fresh blossoms flowered

and youthful buds now greet the sun.
Did you care that I was gone

in the midst of your glory

to savor other beauties
different joys --
did you even miss me?

"hey, have fun out there!",
While I suffer every second without you,
"go wild, party until the A.M.!"*
Because i know i won't be sober at the P.M. .

You've always been forgetful

You'd forget to turn the lights off
You'd forget to close the toothpaste
You'd forget your clothes in the drier
You'd forget to charge your phone
You'd forget to feed the fish
...

So I did all these things for you

You see, I was convinced that showing you was better than telling you
But you never saw it, now did you?

- Sometimes I'd forget to do all these things on purpose,
so I would remember how it felt like to be with you -

I secretly hope that you can't find your clothes
and your fish die
and your electric bill reaches a 100 billion dollars

Just so you could see
that I was good for you

You know what? No.  __
NO, NO
NO

I do secretly hope that your phone dies
and your clothes get lost
and your fish die
and your toothpaste gets dried up

But only so you could learn the importance of what I used to do
to recognize your faults
and to try and improve, not for me
but for you.

... and I'm not talking about the toothpaste here

You can't demonstrate the change you want to see in someone
if they don't even understand the error in their ways

and so,

I don't want to be the person
who struggles to forgive and forget

I want to be the person
who lives with no regret

knowing that us, ending,
was for the best.

and the best
of each of us

You don’t know how it feels.

When you are cut from your lifeline
like an apple being picked
when it isn’t fully grown.
When you are replaced
with hard plastic and metal
where bone should be.

You probably want to know why he hates you.

It is because he has to learn how to walk again.
Because you can’t run like I could.
Because you can’t kick a soccer ball like I could.
Because you can’t make him itch like I could.
Because you are a reminder of the infection.
The infection...
that took me away from him.

I was made with him.
You were made for him.

You took six weeks to be created
I took nine months.
I was his first step,
You were a puzzle piece
that didn’t quite fit
You had to be forced
by people in white masks and blue gloves
They couldn’t touch you and
neither can he.
So instead you lay on his bedroom floor.

And I will not feel bad for you because
I am lying in a medical waste bin.
Waiting for my turn to enter the fire.

This
is
my
hell.

I miss him,
will you tell him
that I miss him?
Let him know the feeling is mutual.

I understand if you tear this up
there is no warmth in you.
No blood will ever pump through you.
Trust me, I get it.

When the heart dies, it is buried where it belongs.
Being hugged by its fellow vital organs.
it’s just like taking a nap
they say.
But when I die,
I am surrounded
by other dispensable body parts.
We are the forgotten few.
People do not have funerals for finger tips.
It feels like I am being eaten alive.

You can’t tell me I should feel bad for you.
Or that I should feel sorry for you.
Because I was alive,
I was moving
and you
are plastic.

Just,
tell him goodbye for me.

Wrap barbed wire around my body
Pull it tightly, watch the blood come out
It'd cause me some discomfort
But nothing stabs my soul
More than my bare emotions