clawed my way
up and out,
****** and
exhausted,
just for the ground
to give out
beneath me.

i wish you well,
i really do.
happiness
and love
and comfort
and every little slice
of goodness
you deserve.

i do hate you
just a little bit
though,
for how you
left things.
i hate you
just a little bit
for being well.

are you still
there?
i noticed
your silence,
villain disguised
as victim
brought to your knees
brandishing
your bloodied hands
as a casualty,
like they aren't
the weapon
like you didn't
walk your greedy
little fingers up
inside my rib cage
and take it all.

did you know
i dreamed of you
almost every night?

dreamed of chasing you,
begging you,
an almost pathetic longing

for years and years
until i finally
fell out of love with you.

i still dream of you
once in awhile,

but it's not me
giving chase anymore,

it's you.

i took a deep breath
once a upon a time
and held it
until my lungs
crumbled
and my heart
mummified
and my bones
fossilized in
the aftermath
buried somewhere
beneath the sidewalk
my blood had seeped into
visceral and fleeting
a single moment
washed away
in the rain

i think the
irony

befits such an
ending -

you,
settled

me,
altered

permanently
unsettled

a trace of
you forever

running through
my veins

quietly, another year
added to the tally,
somehow too many
or too few,
depending on the
company.

a passive reminder
of every absence,
for better or worse,
all the things i never
became, all the things
i've never done,
the lone day a year
i hear from my father,
a three word message
no more
no less.

another year,
any other day. just once,
it'd be okay to hear
"neutral day of birth.
hope it's
fine."