Home sweet home
Fifth avenue to the right
Dads home baked cookies and
Pink Floyd

The summer of 2002
My brother let me dance on his
Toes while my mama hummed
And braided flowers into my hair

Home turned sour
And those flowers died
Mama stopped humming
The radio was shut off
My brother moved out
Said he had to get away
But that he'd come back to me

Daddy's home baked cookies
Started coming from the box
And mama moved out
From the red house on
Fifth avenue

My brother visited weekly
But soon only stopped by
Once a month
Bills got high and he only
Celebrated holidays
Before he got away again
He promised he'd come back to me


He didn't.

There are words in my head
and the words make sentences
and the sentences make paragraphs
and then the paragraphs form stories that
are incoherent and jumbled like aphasia and
I'm drunk with this pain because there are too
many words too many words too many words and

my heart is so thirsty

my mind is so quiet

my hands are so still

Write about the morning you
wake up to the steady
rise
      and
fall
of a lovers chest,
      eyelashes fluttering,
             sweat resting on their collarbones
                             like dew in the early morning.