abby abby
eyes of gold
what does your
reflection hold

abby abby
actually eyes of green and blue
like the ocean after a storm
your eyes hold depths that
we cannot fathom

abby abby
perfect smile
light up a room
make others smile too

abby abby
beautiful flower
strong like a tree
roots sunk deep into the heart
of the earth

abby abby
my rock to lean against
when the going gets rough
i don’t let many people cry on my shoulder
but you are certainly invited to
when and if you need to

abby abby
keep me up at night
but in the best possible way
the dreams where you are in them
leave me feeling rested

abby abby
gonna do great things
just have to stick around
to see what the future holds
a future as bright as your eyes

abby abby
platonic love of my life
i love you
i love you
i love you

abby abby
my dearest friend

my mistress
she is the wilderness
the feel of the backpack weighing me down
sinking my feet into the dirt
dragging me back with every
step i take

my mistress
she is the open sky
the constellations set over my head
and the stars burning out
and being reborn
constantly in a dance not meant for our eyes

my mistress
she is the heart on the
face of the mountain
seen by the playing children
swinging on their swings
pretending to fly

my mistress
she is the grape soda
the liquid courage
the teenager drinks
to help stave off the pain
when writing of sad things

my mistress
is the pain
the hole in my heart
that she left
when she went away
way too soon

my mistress
is the feeling of isolation
going beyond shutting yourself away in a room
that need to be closer to her
but the wilderness cannot hold you
it does not have a heart beat

but sometimes
the trees have her face
and you feel so much closer to her
think of how much she should have grown
how she should have graduated with them
******

my mistress
is the mountains and the peaks
begging me to come step over them
but they are mere ideas
shaped by the earth
and they only make my back hurt

my mistress
is being alone
where there are no hands to hold me back
but still i do not jump
because there are no hands to catch me
no arms to hold me close

my mistress
is the darkness outside my window
the rain on the asphalt
the smell of freshly cut grass
they do not bring her back
but they make life a little less painful

i had a dream that i cut my eyelid in half
and then when i put a gauze piece on it
and taped it up
people kept on pulling it off and poking at
my bleeding eye
and this is what it feels like to be born
and loved
and hated
and told goodbye for the first and last times
just quit poking at my eye
because it ******* hurts
and this is what it feels like to be
in a hospital for the first time
after you have taken forty
of your favorite pills and hoped to never
wake up again
i wasn't even born in a hospital
but man
i don't wanna go back
but what if i need to
does this make me weak
my eye hurts

the last thing i thought
before i fell into that
sleep of the ******
that only 40 pills and over
a thousand mg can provide

i realized that
even before i had started writing
about you
that i wouldn’t be able to write
about you

and that scared me even
more than the thought that i would
never be held again
because to me the written word
is more powerful than any touch

and i never got a chance
to thank you
because i really am thankful
for your not letting me through the pearly gates
even though i smashed my knuckles raw

i smashed my hands until
bone stuck out through my tattered skin
******
and still you did not heed my calls
my pleas to let me in

and when i woke up
later that night
and then again and again
at first i was angry
but now i am thankful

and i am never going to
be able to thank you
and that makes me angry all over again
but mostly sad
an endless cycle

i am the top that is
endlessly spinning around the ghost
of your name on my tongue
i long to be in your presence again
please come back

but really
thank you for not opening the door
but when it really is my time
i hope that you will open up the door wide
and welcome me home with a smile

my father broke my heart
but my cousin took it with him
when he left for college
leaving us all behind
in this podunk town

i scraped the stubby remains
of my big toenails against the soft
downy bottom of my shoes
and bit my nails down to the quick
so i wouldn’t cry when they didn’t say your name

i looked for your name
in the R
the D
and the S
but you weren’t there

my eyes kept on straying
back to where your name
wasn’t written
not even once
and the voices called your name in anguish

my scars showed up for
the occasion
and i wanted to make them deeper and more there
but that wouldn’t have made you proud
i’m glad you never saw how broken i really am

i want to go back
to fourth grade before i knew that suicide
is and was a permanent thing
that words hurt more than the blades
and not being able to say goodbye hurts even worse

as we were paraded out
of the theater
after all of the graduates
i said goodbye to three people
i didn’t look for you

i lick the tears
smudged on the lenses of my glasses
littered among the fingerprints
they taste like the salt that i pour
into my wounds on a daily basis

i don’t bother to
clean my glasses until i literally
can’t see out of them because of how
***** they are because it’s easier to face the world
when i can’t really see it

even when i can
see what is coming at me once again
i find it terrifying instead of comforting
it’s like being able to see the fist coming at you
but not being able to dodge it in time

as this metaphorical fist
connects with my face
i realize i haven’t had the chance to take
off my glasses before i was hit
and wonder vaguely if glass will make my eyesight worse

in the car
sat next to my mother
sweating along to the country songs on the radio
my toenails scrape against the bottoms of my shoes
as i scuff the them against the worn carpeting
the car smells like very berry hibiscus
and black coffee that reminds me
of a place before they were gone

at the cemetery
it feels wrong to be alive
and i make sure not to step
directly onto the headstones
because the horror movies always warn
me of hands coming up through the dirt

but i can’t
help but to think of how nice
it would be to be held by my great grama
one last time
even if i got dirt in my eyes
it would be nice to see her again

i’m sorry that
i didn’t go near her coffin
i remember his funeral too
though i don’t know how many years ago
it happened to be
i cried the hardest
and i remember at her funeral
how my mom and sister were talking about how
proud they were that neither of them cried
like i did
and i felt small and weak and childish
but also
painfully human

i find that
it is easier to think of the cemetery
as more of a library for the dead
because most of them are as old
as the dewey decimal system
and i’m just pawing through the card catalogs
looking for a hand to hold

your parents are
under the c category
c for classen
c for caring
c for compassion
c for clarity
c for cherished memories
c for come back