it's not that
i'm not sincere
it's that i don't
know how to
convey that i
actually care

(what a complex
color scheme
so bright and
busy on the mind
i can feel your eyes
picking it apart)

because i've
worked hard
to look like
i don't
worked hard to pretend
i don't need you to care

(and how my words
start looking
unconventional
formulated to seem
like something i
never was)

i wasn't
not really
it was just the
here's the thing
how do i say
tired?

(i don't think i'll
ever see you again
and i don't feel as old
as the others seemed)

i'm grateful
for your gifts
and kind words
i really am

(i cashed your checks
months before
hitting the post office
go ahead and
call me a
heartless *****)

just know that
i haven't
spent a single
cent of it

it's sitting in
my checking
account just
waiting and
wondering how
much of
my hospital bill
it will cover

(but if there's anything i can't
do that's blame you for wanting to
contribute to the side of my
personality that you never knew)

please put your money
where your intentions are
and you know what they say
about good intentions

(that the road to hades
is paved with them)

but they never did
mention which one
of us was heading
towards hell.

I know a girl who cut her hair short
My freshman year
Because a boy had pulled it so hard it
tore out her heart

I know a girl who cut her wrists
When we were in 8th grade
Because her mind was not good enough
For her boyfriend.

I know a girl who cut class
My sophomore year
To ***** a senior
Who had ****** every girl in the school
"except me" she said
"We make love" She said.

"We were great" She said.

"We weren't meant to be." She says.

It's just a little checkup
To make sure my blood's still red
Not black
Or even gone altogether

It's just a little checkup
To make sure I'm more alive
On the outside
Than on the inside

I wanna carve your name
Into my wrist
And have you sew me back together
So you can see how much
You've hurt me

I spent years of my life in a fantasy world.

waters inhabited with murlocs
Forests with centuars and unicorns
I had badass armor
Spellbooks, Abilities, Charisma modifiers!

When you live in Dungeons and dragons you finish quests, unlock gods,
Slay Monsters

When my DnD group broke up

I didn't lose a group of friends.
I lost a party of adventurers

Their eulogies pronounced at the end of that final nat one
Will never be forgotten.

Portaits carved like improv comedy routines.
Characatures of our ideal selves
Bound, sealed, stuck on a book shelf
We deserved another sequel.

When the party healer crumpled her car against a Concrete wall at 70 miles an hour
It made sense nobody else knew how to cast raise dead.

In a world that is supposed to play out our ideal realities
it was no question her charecter lived eternal. the way she would have wanted.
The way we wanted so badly to be true.
Nobody felt right taking over her charecter.
And nobody wanted to **** her off.
So we wrote her story.
Every die she had tossed this whole adventure. Each murloc she ran from, each unicorn she rode, etched into a leather bound tome.
Placed Right on the same shelve we kept our pathfinder books.
Her headstone.
We never played after that.
But she did.
When we placed the novel next to the flowers her mother left.
We felt her cast healing song
one last time
And that night
We got a full rest

I wake up on a yoga mat
In what is now just My
empty room.

All the clutter That made this house
lived in.
Tucked
in the three old
Sock and underwear drawers
That used to be:
Hers.

The family photographs
half the nerdy posters
books,
Magic the Gathering cards,
Burgled by some addict named time.

I look out at what I now call
"The guest bedroom".
The only evidence of her
An empty dresser
covered in Princess stickers.

At work
Customers ask:
How are you doing?
"I'm awesome! how are you?"
How are you doing?
"I'm wonderful! what brings you to freeport?"
How are you doing?
"I'm fantastic, peak or dark roast?"

How's your daughter?
"Step-daughter."
That's all I'm allowed to tell you
My boss said I'm scaring off customers By
over-sharing
So he wrote me a script.

I would love to tell you
I don't know how she's doing
And it's killing me.

Her mother left me,
We were both fifteen at the time so
My mother, Rightfully cautious
of her overly passionate puppylove eyed son
Didn't let me adopt

So I don't get to see her anymore.

Her mother was a fire who never drank enough rain
And that little girl
Will burn without my clouds.

I am playground math lessons
In space of mindless television
I am baking a cake together Instead of
"You won't eat till you listen".
I am the voice behind every barbie doll
And dinosuar that ever fell in love.

when you ask me how she's doing
All I can think about is how
I earned that
first "I love
you,
dada."

How I made her laugh
more times than her Mother made her
Cry.
How I tucked her in at night
and she made me read her
"Oh The Places You'll Go",
Over
and Over
and Over.
Screaming
when I said she'd go
On through the hakken kraks howl,
and Giggling
when I said she'd move
Mountains.
I raised her for three years.

But because I walked in on my daughter
Locked in "The guest bedroom"
banging on the Oak door
Screaming "DA DAAAA!"
While her mother forgets about us
On the other side of a keyhole.

I have to waste at this register
Handing you a precious cup of coffee
every precious cup of coffee
another abuse I can't protect her from.

"How is your daughter?"
"Step Daugher"
"How are you doing?"
"I'm awesome."
"How is your daugher?"
"Step daughter."
"how are you doing? Step daughter"
"Tell me how you're doing, Step Daughter."
"Please, Tell me you're safe."
"Tell me you're safe."
"Tell me you're safe."