Written letters are left in the world of being done.
They leave a strange sinking in your stomach,
Like the one you get when your shirt grabs hold of
The edge of a chair
And pulls you back to the second before you rushed off.

They don’t go softly,
Like the biggest snowstorm of your life melting away.
They wrinkle out the page they're printed on,
Like leaving your favorite shirt under your bed for a while:
It’s covered in waves.

But then the fabric like the sea
Turns into fabric like the sky
Because your body stretched the color out.

And you hate the sky because it’s too big
But the sea was fine because it was limited
And you don’t know where the sky ends
And it’s scary.

Then you think
Maybe the wrinkles weren't so bad
Because the shirt really was the sea with tides

But it’s already turned into the sky:
Stained with clouds
And what’s done is done
And you hate it.

The clouds staining the sky
Look like the guard rail scrapes
That ruined the car your cousin crashed
When he was seventeen.

The striped scars on his back looked like the tiger’s:
The one that eluded his imaginary rifle,
Which he used to lug through his backyard jungle
As a child.

And when he turned into prey,
He hunted himself.

A day without my mother
Would begin at noon,
As she wouldn’t be there
To nag or drag me out of bed any earlier.

A day without my mother
Would feed me 1 piece of toast
With 1 chunk of butter
Or cinnamon toast crunch
Or both, for that matter.

A day without my mother
Would send lonely texts to no one saying,
“Heading home,” or
“Do we need milk?” or
“There’s a really good song on the radio
so I’m gonna take a couple spins around the block until it’s over.
Don’t panic if I’m not home at exactly 6:27.”

A day without my mother would hardly be worth jotting down at all.