i remember the day
after you died
how the voice over the
intercom was choked with tears
and my heart caught in my throat

you were only a year
older than i was
and your soul was already
too big for your body

i immortalized you in ink
on my right shoulder
it almost made your parents cry
++++++
i remember the day
i was told that you had died
taken your own life
and the sun had yet to rise

it felt fitting
no bright light to
disturb the tears that fell from
my eyes and into my hands

and i think about you sometimes
like the smile you always shared
how easily you laughed
how that could have been me
that could have been me
++++++
i remember the day
that i read about how you had died
taken your own life
older than me but still too young

i never met you
but you found a place in my heart
and that spot still aches
sitting on my carpet
and sobbing until i gagged

it’s been a year
or maybe two
can’t say for sure but
i still think i see you
almost gotten off the bus before
and isn’t that something?
++++++
we were all just kids
if only for a moment
all growing in our own ways
and then you all just
stopped

i cried for you first
and then both of you
and i cried for myself

that could have been me
that could have been me
that could have been me

the blood in me loves you
and other sweet nothings
i can make real
simply by speaking them, lover

with your head in my lap
my hands in your long hair
and the night fraying at the
edges around us

giving way to dawn
for the second time
what a treat to watch it
become light once again
with you

and other sappy ****, too
because that’s what i’m good at
putting more poetry
and romance into whatever
it is we have

whatever it is
we had
than there ever could have been

and sometime it feels like
all that’s left between us is
an empty bottle of ***
two ***** shot glasses
and the shaking of my hands
the aching of my teeth

and what an ending that is,
lover

what an ending this is
giving back the time
i had tried to borrow
for us

sometimes
love just isn’t enough
and that really ******* *****

such an emotion gets too
much credit for what
it is and isn’t able to do

love won’t stop a bullet
can’t hold back a knife
from opening up skin
like a second mouth
won’t stop you from leaving

and that’s the thing isn’t it?
love won’t always be enough
and god knows
i wish it were
with all of my being

i think we deserve a
happy ending, lover
don’t you?

i want an ending
that doesn’t leave me
with an ache

with a rawness that i
have yet to discover how to
keep from festering

and i loved her
and i loved him
and i love you
so much it left a mark
but that just wasn’t enough

and there is only so
much of me
of my love
i can give before i’ve
finally been hollowed out

i don’t think my love
will be enough
even then, lover

and that’s something
i’ll just have to
learn to
live with

but right now
it really ******* hurts

i want to kiss you
do you know that, lover?
and not just when i’m drunk
though i’d be more likely
to ask then

and the pocket-sized
bottle of tequila i drank
isn’t the only thing
making my guts warm

but the way you look at me
laying down fully on your couch
because i think i’m funny
makes me realize that i
wouldn’t mind waking up to you
coming home to you

makes me realize that
maybe i’m in too deep
but i passed the shallows
months ago

floating on my back
and holding out my hand
maybe hoping that
our hands will touch
is that really too much to ask?
lover?

mama didn’t raise no quitter
but she sure as hell
raised a fool

i am a fool
for hope
for love
for you

and for this
bottle of *****
like drinking the whole
thing will actually help
and not just make me
puke my brains out
later

and i have so much
love to give
but mostly to those
that don’t know what
real and true
love is

and the chokehold
hope has on me
only tightens

but i have learned
to let it, lover
eating matches to
burn off the darkness
inside and leave only
love and light and hope
and you you you

my sorrow is a monster
ten feet tall
all beady eyes and
teeth sharper than razor blades
nipping at my heels

i cannot run fast enough
to evade this black wave
that has only grown with me

nestled up against my ribcage
like vines crushing the life from
a once mighty tree
covered in all these hurts

but it wasn’t always this way
some monsters aren’t
just the way they are
some monsters are made

and this monster was nurtured
a catalogue of things i can’t fix
things i can’t change
things that were done to me

and there’s only so much
i can drink
only so many painkillers
i can swallow
before i feel nothing at all

my sorrow is not my friend
these claws only know how to
rend and tear
never knowing a touch that
was anything other than cold

this choke-chain i hold
in my shaking hands
hardly seems like enough to
contain such a beast

and i don’t want to be
like my parents
i don’t want to be
like you, lover boy
drowning my sorrow in
whatever i can reach

my sorrow will not
make me as monstrous
as this darkness so
often feels

you hurt me
you selfish
*******
*******

i was just a kid
a young boy wondering
where his father was

telling the other kids in
my kindergarten
first
second
and third grade classes
that i didn’t have a father

and that never felt like a lie
seeing as you never had
the time for parenting
media and fiction told me
what a father should be

and you never did live
up to that
the image i had in my head
of what it meant
for a father to be loving

and
and
and
i am drunk

i am drunk
and angry
and hurting

but never enough to
pick up the phone
not that you would ever call
and not that i would ever answer

and i am still licking
the wounds that an absent
childhood left behind
wondering when this
void will close
waiting for a scab to form
that is no longer so **** flimsy

and my tattoo artist tells me
that his father was like mine
but also worse
and when his father died
everything he felt for him
died, too

and
and
and
i wonder if that will
happen to me, too

will all the memories
the hurt outweighing the good
finally burn out?
will i stop longing for
something i never had?

will the fact that
you never wanted me
as a daughter
or as a son
stop aching
so **** much?

will you have to die
for me to no
longer
be afraid?