My childhood ended when my dollhouse got repossessed,
crying in the back of Daddy’s Caddie.
You traded your daughter for diamonds
and left it all behind in a U-Haul.

You blamed his haunting city streets,
and post-war reenactment dreams.
You couldn’t be the queen to his beer can kingdom anymore.
He flipped too many coffee tables,
and let the kids grow up wrong,
and suddenly wasn’t the man you loved in high school.
He’s just another excuse,

But this isn’t about him,
This is about you,
All 534 miles of it.

You’re a woman without mirrors.
You play victim too well,
and love me like the favorite chip on your shoulder.
I gave your title to a deserving stranger,
and you flew from my human scent.
I never got to tell you about the splatter.
It’s hard to forgive someone who’s never at fault.

But this isn’t about us,
This is about you!
All 534 miles and counting!

This is about your life in 5 year chapters,
and sweeping your problems under the bible-belt.
This is about looking for happiness in the small town Carolinas,
and loving another man,
and another daughter,
and all the people you don’t owe apologies.

This is all about you,
And what you’ve done,
And you will never be more than this.

Remember I was beautiful.
Take tissue paper roses
And remember how I bled for the thorns
Stare into the eye of the tittle and see me.
We will dance across the lines of life and death
And even when I’m gone you will feel my marble hands on your hips

I will walk your hallways in paper sheets
And tell you secrets in television static
I will talk to you with the words of infomercials
And tell you who I was in the braille of your goose bumps

Remember how I wanted to be beautiful
I kissed every letter goodnight with raspberry lips
And dressed every cry in silk and cashmere
Find beauty in the dark of my shadows
And in the arms of a poem’s phantom
I left my body in the dust of empty deserts  
and my soul in lines of free verse obituaries

Today we were vandals
And yesterday we were saints
Nomads of the commonly know
Where bad poetry lines live
And Facebooks are forgotten
Where ice castles witness first kisses
And they dine alone
Dashing between the straight jacket high fashions
And flipped birds instead of words
This is where we belong.
I will stay until streetlights explode
And suns melts
And all I need is in your eyes
I carry you through mouse hole thresholds
And you never made drifting look so unbearable

Dance one more song on trembling lips
And seep into the eyes of a coward.

Put to rest his show and tell body
And break a streak of half-baked hearts.
Illusions of life are crueler than
Revelations of death
So put to rest the pursuits of dead ends
And pity the starving rats

Twist his blunt wrap soul
Into a long awaited sober promise
And give his words a life behind tangible lies.
Cruel intentions spark up the only honest attempts
So set fire to the liars soul
And pray for those who believed

Remember the kisses from a Prozac smile
And know this is the last of love.

I’ve got scabs to pick:
Remnants of a bleeding heart,
Memories of a first time smile.

I’m still hoping on wishes made from dead stars,
Our promises exploded light years ago
So I put my faith in ghosts,
Dazzling liars

I pretend wasp stings are butterfly kisses
And that atheist’s prayers don’t scare me
Don’t question empty churches and disappearing bees

I need something to believe in
And something to see in the mirror
Other than my mother.

I need scabs to be scars
And stars to be stars
And something stronger than butterfly wings

Dad had dragons in his cigarette smoke,
and hummed to dog tags jingling like wind chimes.
Mom has excuses titled “college textbooks”,
and burned her problems over the kitchen sink.

The war ended, dragons went extinct
and the class of 03’ moved on.
Now I christen the silence with Ozzy era Sabbath,
and  fill the empty beds with perishables
to rot with me in the teenage years.

You strangle me with your eyes,
and I sweep our past under the bed.
My heart wanders from room to room.
The prisoners of war jump out the windows,
falling like the day’s hundred follicles.
The parachute men die at the hands of their lovers,
with slurs as theirs last words.

I spend dim lit days waiting for the permanent  
to change its mind to temporary.
I wait a year to exhale,
I wait two to heal,
and I wait many more for you.

All because I’m scared by the thought of things expiring,
but my greatest fear is to be alone with the rotting.