Sometimes I lie
When people ask me those questions
Like “who inspires you the most”
Or “what is the most influential thing to have happened in your life”
Sometimes I talk about
Women in science
Or growing up adopted
Or being a struggling reader when I was in third grade
I never talk about my mom
I never talk about feeling like I had missing pieces
Not just in my heart but in my mind
Like someone pulled out the naughty things
The bad things
Leaving me with only leftovers.  
When people ask me for my best story
Sometimes I talk about how
I faked a peanut allergy
And how a boy stabbed me with an epipen when I ate a peanut butter malt in front of him
Thinking he was saving my life.
I usually avoid the part
About me wishing that those drugs were lethal
That an epipen could end it all.
I find small talk to be so hard
Because there aren’t enough good bits inside me
To make it through a conversation.
If you see me
Can you just do that thing
Where we make eye contact and nod slightly
Smiling sometimes and not stopping.
I don’t have anything
Truthful left to say.

Sometimes I just sit
and think about flowers.
The differences between
petals and leaves
and how to best clean
dirt from under my
fingernails.
Sometimes I just sit
and think about flowers.

"What do you think heaven looks like?"
"Clouds. Sunshine. Angels."
"But really? You don't think heaven has
desks and post offices and plastic
grocery bags?"
"Probably not."
"Oh."

Do you think God ever had a moment
just a second
that the weight of the world
was just too heavy?

I am a product of my parents:
a combination of hypersensitivity and anti-depressants.
I can see my mother
in the way I flinch
when my the bus heaves
taking me to my next appointment.
My parents did not teach me to be inquisitive
but after running
from one doctor to the next
I needed to know
can medication really save a soul?

The last time we met it was raining
and the stampede of raindrops on the roof
must have made it hard for you to hear.
I had wanted to tell you about my mother
how I wasn’t yet five feet tall
when she was six feet under.
Lover, listen.
Incurable illnesses cannot recognize
the plumpness of an over ripe nectarine
from the plumpness of a woman’s breast.
And the last time we met I don’t think you heard me say
that my name is Amelia
because you kept moaning Sarah.
Now, lover.
I understand the impossibility of moving on
but I’ve run out of excuses to make.
There’s no Lauren or Patrice
just me in these sheets.
Lover, please.
Pick me.

I watched a body burn yesterday,
with eyes closed shut
and brown hair parted so perfectly
that it couldn’t possibly have been you.
But it was wearing your shoes
the faded blue Converse
that I tried to throw away when you weren’t looking.
Your mom must have salvaged them.

I’ve been looking for you
in the places I thought would remember you.
I have found
that you don’t exist anywhere:
not in the urn
resting in your mother’s living room
not in the shower
where I try to freeze the love out of me.
You have left me smoldering.

Your mom told me they burned you
with a pack of cigarettes
in your jacket pocket.
The faint smell of burning tobacco
would follow you to death.

I think I might hate you.
You told me it was your trademark
to leave people wondering
about where you were going.
I thought you were just mysterious
not intentionally cruel.
But you have left me here
left me not knowing
if my heart is on fire
or if I stepped into the crematorium with you.
I can’t breathe right now.
Completely burnt out.