Your room is always messy.
Cheerios crowding into the carpet
careful not to be crushed by your drunken feet.
I ask you why you never clean it.
You say this is what college is.

You haven't talked to me in three days.
I lay awake at night picturing you
in your dirtied room,
the clattering windows shades,
the TV you never turn off.

In my head I ask you why
you never clean it.
Maybe if you just moved a pair
of pants you'd find me shadowing underneath.
Maybe you'd know how to talk to me again.

I don't look for an answer.
Instead I watch my windows sway,
wait for you to call,
wait to forgive you.

©DelaneyMiller

I was taught at a young age,
To watch what bridges I burn.
But something daddy didn't know,
Was that creating them can be just as destructive,
As setting them aflame.

There is a bat in my closet.
I can hear it rattle its ratted wings
whenever I think about last summer,
the dark and curling feelings.

I can still see its putrid paws hanging over me
in the bathroom that summer night I came home crying.
The alcohol spilt on my dress was streaming
the words my friend  said as he threw
the open beer can at me.
“I love you and you’re too much of a ***** to love me back.”
I don’t understand why I felt so bad.
Why the bat inside beckoned to me,
hissed at me to take the razor,  
to free it from my cyclic center.

I can still feel the first cut,  
me shattering on the bathroom sink,
the bat inside of me screeching
through my watery skin.
I still do not know how to forgive myself
for being so stupid.
I do not know how to forgive the bat in me.
Instead I hide it in my closet,
Lay in bed each night hoping
its wings wont rattle through the door.

©DelaneyMiller