and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

while september cicadas
were singing my neighbors to sleep
i was up walking holes in my shoes
over love once lost
so many poems ago
that the only thing i remember
about the house at 38th & bluestone
is that it reeked of alcohol and is
as i'm sure of it
still saturated in perfume
and abandoned laughter
but that's not the point
give me a minute
what i'm trying to say
is i always thought god
enjoyed watching things leave me
it makes me wonder
what was on his mind
that night in september
when i stooped to cough
or tie my shoelaces
i no longer remember why
but i recall their trajectory
the way gravity cradled my hands
and brought them crashing back to earth like a 747
they landed inches away
from a scrap of crumpled loose leaf
folded in half like the smiles
of my relatives on a holiday truce
you see, lately i've been looking for scars in the newspaper
i find myself checking the obituary
for my former selves since the day i found your suicide letter
maybe that's why i can never explain my obsession with history
maybe archeology is just a funeral
in reverse
maybe hell is just rewinding home movies
or watching confetti
turn back into photographs
i never told anyone
the reason the doors to the gun cabinet in my family's house are locked not because they are afraid
i will take my life
but because sometimes
i sing them birthday songs
on the day you died
it makes me think
of how rooms only echo
when they are empty

*you know
i never echoed until you died

Falling for you was a lot like getting drunk. It all happened so fast, I didn't even bother to slow down and think about the consequences, I just wanted to feel good and you made me feel so good. But things got out of hand and before I knew it I was wanting more and more of you, taking shot after shot until I could hardly stand on my own. Contrary to popular belief, alcohol won't keep people happy, and more often that not it leaves you laying on the bathroom floor trying to pin-point the moment it all went wrong. A lot like love. Now I'm just hungover, not because I fell out of love with you (I could never do that), but because I can still feel you inside of me. There are knots in my stomach and a constant ache in my head that won't fade no matter how many pills I take. There's hardly a difference between this and an actual hangover, except I'm going to feel like this for a long, long time.

I stood frozen in horror as you set your bedroom on fire, tearing apart your favorite shirts and breaking picture frames. The smoke curled up towards the ceiling and you looked at me like I was a car crash unfolding before your eyes. You drove us to the river, silent and white knuckled the entire way. You sighed when we got out and put a rock on the gas pedal. I tried to take your hand as we watched your rickety car sink into the sunsets reflection, but you pulled away and said you couldn't bear to hold onto one more thing that just wouldn't fix itself.

I should have seen the warning signs.
Maybe then i could have prevented it.
Maybe i could have told her something, anything that would have made her feel better.

you couldn't

I should have seen the warning signs.
Maybe then i could have told somebody.
Maybe then i could have gotten the help she needed.

i wouldn't listen

I should have seen the warning signs.
Maybe then i wouldn't be sitting here, reading the obituaries, trying to erase her name.

it was unpreventable

I should have seen the warning signs.

*you did

My body is like a destroyed DVD,
Scratched up from all the lies and pain brought by two humans I’ve trusted for the last 14 years.

Like a deep scarred disc,
My life stops, (Pause)
sk-k-kips (act like i’m stuttering) over the years I call scenes, I want to forget.

As time ticks by,
more scenes from my life are erased from sharp things like knives and lies.

scene 1: Daddy quits drinking, mommy starts smoking again.

scene 2: We move to Maine to be close to grampy and grammy, they said maybe they can help mommy slow down the amount of gray clouds released from her mouth.

scene 3: Mommy and daddy kiss each other like the people in the movies, its kinda gross

scene 4: We move again cause daddy says his hands make holes in the walls bigger than elephants. and I know that is big.

scene 5: I start Kindergarten, daddy is holding my hand tighter than a gorilla. it sort of hurts but I won’t say anything.

scene 6: I call my teacher mom, maybe cause mrs.roberts has asked me more questions about how my day than the person that used to make supper for us.

scene 7: Mommy starts swallowing these ovally things so she can feel better and not yell at daddy anymore

scene 8: I have to start taking the pills with mommy cause apparently being myself isn’t good enough for her.
[Pause again]
scene 9: mommy is pulling more cigarettes out of the white box than I can even count

scene 9: my daddy wakes me up with bottles that are brown and shaped like the ones on t.v. breaking on the floor cause he isn’t supposed to be drinking that kind of “juice”

scene 10: My mom says she is going away for a while but never says when she’ll be back.

Scene 10: I’m not inhaling the black smoke she blew in my face filled with elements that I discovered called Lies and pain.

Scene 11: Mom comes back like winter, cold hearted and only for a few months

[Pause for audience]

scene 12: Dad locks Mom and I out of the house

scene 12: Mom leaves me at the house so I have to sleep outside

scene 12: Mom is moving 5 states south, the same direction my life is going.

(Slow down)
Scene 15: I get caught finding a way to release all the pain onto my wrists with knives cause my dad is using the same knives to open bottles like a sailor.

Scene 15: I haven’t seen mom in 3 years

Scene 15: I blame myself for dad drinking again

Scene 16: Mom says she loves her boyfriend more than her own 3 children

scene 16: My 12 year old brother is told to **** himself

scene 16: nobody cares

Scene 16: (Slow down) My dad asks why I want to skip over the scenes 13-14
[pause]
“Dad life is to short to reminisce all the bad things.”
Even now I still make scars on the left side of my brain as if I’m going back in time from the Iphone 6 to the 1st Iphone getting thicker and thicker

Scene 16: My dad pays for pills that try to fade the scars on my dvd.