8:47 pm. Some *** and coke slips down my throat.
10:04 pm. They ask about you and I answer effortlessly, slipping into some silent uneasiness.
12:18 am. A tear slips on to your written words I swore I wouldn't read over. Again.
12:31 am. I'm slipping shamelessly into everything we were.
12:35 am. Past tense slips off my tongue and I let it take me, hoping it'll turn to present by morning.

"You had me go from what I thought was sliding carefully to seriously slipping out of control"echoes through my headphones as I slip into sleep.

She knows I’m supposed to end up with him someday.
She doesn’t know where or when or how.
She doesn't care.

But she knows
Like she always has
And she reminds me.

I held the book too long but ended up a content reader.
She wants to rip out the back pages and add a million blank ones
The last inscribed with promises instead of apologies.

Nothing can stop her from whispering to me now and then.
No hands of Time squeezing her neck if only for a chance to turn her cheek
Or bridges built of closure,
Band-Aids disintegrated into flesh.  

She’s a fighter, one much braver than me.
Her stubbornness peeks through her passion
And I cannot help but stare.

She knows if the breathing doesn’t match then it’s worthless
I know I’ll have to dig until enough letters can give "worth" a new definition.

She cares about my happiness.
I care about her.

Sometimes I can’t sew her mouth shut
So I straighten the thread out repeatedly hoping everything will soon follow.
The needle is too big and unravels into every poem he ever wrote.
Her fingers peel my eyelids back as she fills me up with his words.
Their voices swirl together and I swear I can hear mine.

Her words are quiet but so articulate I feel each consonant strike my ear
Sent on a smooth path straight to my chest before my brain can even take a breath.

She knows the heaviest thing I carried away was her Welcome Mat a few months ago
But I pity and admire her for making that a reason to stop knocking
For actually wanting to stay.

At night, my tears scream out that I think she’s wrong
That my progress is in the palms she constantly shows me face-down.

She doesn’t believe that I don't want her around.
She shouldn’t.

Her claim is that we’re on the same team
But I spend every moment justifying my losing score to my conscience.

She is determined to win.
I am often determined to let her.

Three weeks ago, I saw my aunt without a wedding ring and her baby, Abigail, without a clue.

The questions that were fired at my mother after she delivered the news to me formed a ball in my throat the next time my aunt explained why Uncle Charlie wasn't at a family party.

I know my own vision was blurred but I saw every pair of eyes turn towards Abigail.
She was smiling over a bowl of chips.

My aunt hugged me goodbye loosely and although she probably needed me to pull tighter, I couldn't without thinking of his suffocating hugs.
Maybe she would feel the same.

My brain still houses a jumbled combination of every rare word whispered about it.
My stomach contorts as my grandparents fear his presence to pick up his daughter the way I now fear my own family for being so ridiculous.
He isn't dangerous.
He didn't do anything wrong.
They fell out of love (apparently).
Everything takes two.

How can they welcome a person in to the family then reject him without remorse?

My heart is sore every passing day I'm reminded that Abigail is only one years old.
I want to catch her tears when Mommy leaves her for weeks at a time the way her two front teeth catch her tongue when she tries to pronounce my name.
I want to make sure she fully understands what love is before she experiences heartbreak.
I want her first broken heart to happen when she's sixteen and the first people she learned to love to not be the culprits.
I want everyone else to stop denying the fact that she definitely has an idea about what's going on.

When my aunt and uncle told my Grandmother they needed to talk, she clapped and asked for the due date.
I sat in my bed upon finding out with that same shock,
subconsciously numbering each couple of the family in order of most likely to be divorced.
Guess who was in last place.

Their wedding replays in my memory alongside the effortless conversations with my uncle I now long for more than ever.

I worry about him.
I worry about her.
I worry about Abigail. Everyone does.

Because she sings the closing Barney song on repeat for a family who provides forced smiles framed with bitten lips.
Because I don't ever want her to think she should stop singing.

Three weeks ago, I saw my aunt without a wedding ring and her niece with a new fear.

Tonight, I didn't feel welcome in my own living room
And as I sat staring at the stained carpet of my bedroom,
I didn't think of that but of the people who never do.
If I could remove my heart to go out to them
To maybe help them feel full again, I would.
Because exclusion is the least comfortable sweater
And it scratches hard when family members become the stitching.

Because sometimes figuring out how to release emotion is worse than enduring it.
Because sometimes undelivered letters deserve to be written.
Because closure always comes out above anything unfinished.
Because someone is unknowingly cradling your heart.
Because someone knowingly used to.
Because friendships become your favorite jeans - comfortable but worn out.
Because life is an ongoing stress machine.
Because you don't feel like reading,
Or doing anything.
Because the pen kisses the paper the way he no longer kisses you.
Because you want to get better at writing,
Or just better.
Because it's indescribably beautiful.
Because you feel.
*It doesn't matter why and the reasons are endless. It only matters that you do. And that you love it.