to adopt
god
the paperwork
alone

there was a radio somewhere in the basement and we knew this because it would click on long enough for us to cover our feet and question our savior’s second go at amnesia. if I wasn’t there, I was probably trying out my father’s fastball with a grip he called the ribs of my neighbor’s dog. not long from this I was holding a baby and said what a vague hiatus. also in this order I may have said you look like a ghost and then not my finger but a finger does snap into place when I smoke.

i spend most of my time
trying to not take up too much of anyone else’s
i’m not a fragile human being
i just live a fragile existence sometimes
there are so many things about myself
that i still have to learn
like my blood type
and effective coping mechanisms
and anything good about me at all
i’m sorry my low self esteem rubs off on you
and lingers like a perfume scent
in the cross-stitches of your sweaters
but you have to admit
wearing sweaters at all in this weather
is a crime of its own.

I still need a mother for my action figures.  still pray for the baby in the hand-soap commercial.  still make, in dream, symbols for what died there.  still hold photography

as god’s
early love.