Sent yesterday: I miss you.

Sent at 4:33 am: no I don't.
Delivered.
Read at 6:51 am.

Sent at 10:16 am: I wish you would say something.

Sent at 10:20 am: don't respond I'm sorry.
Delivered.
Read at 10:20 am.

Sent at 11:43 am: you're the acidic aftertaste of swallowing my pride

Sent at 12:29 pm: I regret you.
Delivered.
Read at 1:02 pm.

Sent at 6:44 pm: I remember the last time I kissed you. Your lips were still dry because I stole your Chapstick and you held my hand and the back of my neck, I was afraid you were starting to think I was going to fly away.
Delivered.
Read at 6:45 pm.

Sent at 8:34 pm: I broke into my dad's liquor cabinet again. Remember when we celebrated my six months clean? It's funny how that was so recent.
Sent at 9:52 pm: that six months thing is hanging over my head like a ******* rain cloud and you're Zeus. Get your ******* lightning bolts out of my head.
Delivered.
Read at 10:27 pm.

Sent at 11:11 pm: I wish this was different.
Delivered.
Read at 11:11 pm.

Sent at 11:59 pm: goodbye.
Message send failure.
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You helped me dump the body in Lake Michigan
We kicked apart ice glued to the wooden boards on the pier
Before unpacking sandwiches in cellophane and styrofoam wrapped cigarettes
And the ***** bloodstained tarp in my trunk
Bitten by moths and stained with the smell of regret and rot
You grabbed the head and I grabbed the legs
We balanced out picnic on the stomach
Walking carefully down the small wooden road into the water
One two and three we threw the body into the lake
It floated but we made sure to stuff it with rocks the size of your fist
With gold and gray gravel in the small spaces in the mouth where the other rocks were too big to fit
The body sank and we ate our sandwiches under the street lamps where we sang songs and kissed the surface of the lake with our toes
You helped me dump that body
And we haven't mentioned it since
You helped me dump that body
And we haven't gone back to the lake since
You helped me dump that body
And it took a few months
To realize you threw mine in the lake too

Your voice was the engine of my car turning over
The noise of the radio cackling Fm stations whispering quickly before disappearing like the moon behind clouds
The driveway of your ex boyfriend's house cold and empty I could see his tire tracks on your neck
Your muscles contracting like car doors slamming shut I could her your mind tick tocking a plan sputtering to life and the wheels setting it in motion
You grab a rock in your hubcap hands kick it threw a window like gravel beneath your training wheel wrists
Twisting and turning and drifting I followed you as your google mapped memory traced a route through his hallways and closed doors
Until you found the framed 2x5 inch photo booth picture reel he kept of you
Noisily you shook it off the wall and we unlocked all his doors
Your high beam brown eyes shouted at me until God struck life back into my car
You threw the picture out on the Veteran's Memorial
Discarded it and the memory like cigarette butts hoping that could remove the cancer too
You crashed that weekend
You sputtered to life briefly
Turning over before dying

You are the monster under my bed
The boogeyman I cannot forget
The black hand red fingernails creeping lightly on my skin like daddy long legs mama told me couldn't bite
Your lips are splinters digging into the holsters you carved into my bones
October 15th I can remember your blackened eyes hollow nostrils like full moons
You were the werewolf mama told me only came out at night to catch bad little boys
I tried so hard to be good for you to be on your nice list mama said you checked it twice
I bit my tongue till it bled while your boogeyman claws paper shredding my thighs blood coming up like well water on your wrists
I didn’t look when the sun came up and you turned back into a man again
I didn’t look under my bed that night because I knew nightmares weren’t what I was afraid of anymore and
night terrors weren’t what was keeping me so late
I didn’t ask mama if I was a bad little boy and if the werewolf was going to be coming back for me again
didn’t ask her to tuck me in
didn’t ask her to read me another bedtime story
Because you are the monster under my bed
And when I don’t cover my feet under blankets like mama said would keep me safe at night you grip me harder than mama could
I can’t forgive myself and I can’t tell myself
mama was wrong that werewolves and boogeymen don’t come for just the bad little boys at night but you let me know
I was the cautionary fairy tale mama let me know I was the boy who cried wolf
you whispered it in your growling hissing nails-on-a-blackboard boogeyman voice
mama never told me what to do if I was that bad little boy
mama never told me how to fight off the boogeyman
never told me ******* a werewolf
If I should run a stake through your heart or
use holy water
mama I'm sorry I didn't know
mama you told me you could forgive me
That October night I prayed while I was falling asleep
Mama said it would help
“Dear god please forgive me
I let the devil inside
And he won’t get out from under my bed.”

I never liked winter
I loved to watch snow settle on the ground
In unfair uneven proportions
Decorating the space outside my window
But then it becomes gray
Painted in a heavy shaking hand on the trees and in the gutters
Like cigarette ash or crushed Xanax

your hands are the flowers on my uncles grave
wilted like cancer in his lungs
childish games played in the corners of his house
hiding when we heard his screams late in the night
a ticking tocking tick following us from his hospice room
.. / -.. --- -. .----. - / .-- .- -. - / - --- / -.. .. .
that sound click clacked its way into my childhood the way the broken gears on my dead grandmothers clock chimed somehow only on her birthday the way your car turned over your truck turning over your hands turning over .. / -.. --- -. .----. - / .-- .- -. - / - --- / -.. .. . you didn't understand the click clack paddy whack childish game that I thought could butterfly its way between you and me and the trees the way my uncle mothballed his way into my family with his months and dots and dashes  .. / -.. --- -. .----. - / .-- .- -. - / - --- / -.. .. .
my mother gave him his morphine and slipped three extra doses into his system because he said he didn't want to feel the pain anymore
he didn't want to look at me and my sister and cry not because he thought we were beautiful but because he could not breathe
he didn't want to cry and holler in his sleep because his chemo gave him night terrors because his chemo made him so hungry so thirsty he could not drink he could not eat  .. / -.. --- -. .----. - / .-- .- -. - / - --- / -.. .. . my mother could not listen to him anymore she could not tell me and my sisters and my brothers to sit quietly and wait for him to be able to tolerate the pain again
my mother did not want to learn to fall asleep to his cries as well as hers and my fathers and mine
he died peacefully and alone and tired
.. / -.. --- -. .----. - / .-- .- -. - / - --- / -.. .. .
but I still wake up to his screaming
and fall asleep to his echoes

This is not a love poem
Because I swear to god I'm not in love
This is not beautiful
Because I swear to god I'm not that either
This is a half assed pretentious poem
That I wrote to distract myself
From actually feeling sad
Because it's a lot easier to pretend
"I'm fine" is not an excuse
If you can say
"my poetry gets notes on Tumblr"