i keep waking up with blood in my mouth and i never know how it got there. i say your name 3 times like i'm coming home and it's gone. i don't know how. i had this dream the other night where i saw all my memories with you in them except now it's raining in all of them. i don't know what that's supposed to mean but if it's gotta rain somewhere, it might as well be in me. i want all of the sunshine to be left for you. the last memory that i saw in the dream was of us sitting in your car outside of barnes & noble, when you told me about the spot they found in the scan. the honesty in your voice sold out any of the courage you tried to feign for me. i asked you if you were afraid. you said it was all in God's hands. i asked you if you were afraid. you said yes. we sat in the car, under that dark, peculiar rain and i cursed the hands of whoever is up there holding your life so carelessly. maybe i'm a hypocrite or maybe i'm hopeless but i went back to church the next day. i counted all the times they promised you eternal life wishing just one of them would be true. if he really washed you white with his blood i wanna know what that white blood was tending. i counted all the times i wasn't patient with you and wished you hadn't wasted so much precious breath on someone so ungrateful. i counted all the tears, all the goodnight hugs and i love you kisses that your chest has ever known and prayed that there is enough hope in them to fight off whatever it is inside you that's trying to **** you. i'm sorry for whatever i left inside of you 18 years ago that didn't sit well with your bones. i'm sorry for all the bad blood i've caused.

i'm taking comfort in jet lag
i'm thinking of the catharsis in a glance
i'm measuring stages of grief
in atmospheres traversed
i'm changing my name to stale blood
i'm hurdling 27,006 feet above where you are
i'm wondering if emotions can become
airborne
i'm wondering if anyone knows
i'm wondering how everyone here can
just not know
how they can not break down entirely
when they hear someone running to
catch a flight
i'm choking on pressurized air
and promises
death decided i shouldn't keep
i'm breaking sound barriers
trying to find
the last octave you could speak
i'm crying at the sight of sewing needles
i'm sleeping in your bed
i'm dreaming of breaking the teeth
that took your mouth for granted
i'm pressing flowers from your funeral
in a book that promised eternal life
i'm cursing your death certificate
i'm still waiting for a curtain call

when i heard that you were going to die, my mother told me "baby, these bodies are only as strong as the next car crash". invincible until two metal birds try to occupy the same airspace and then hollow bones suddenly are no good for flying anymore. i watched the same thing happen to you, without the screeching brakes. when your blood tried to occupy the same space as your lungs, your heart suddenly didn't know what to do so it didn't do anything. i'm writing this poem without any line breaks because i'm scared that if i give you any empty space, you'll take it and run and i can't let you die like birds flying south for winter. this isn't that natural. i can't justify you dying with a stupid euphemism like "if you love something, let it go". this isn't how it's supposed to be. god created the word "goodbye" to try to make up for the fact that we ever needed to use it in the first place. i'm supposed to be able to use it but you couldn't hear me even if i could. i'd tell you goodbye but it's clear neither of us are good at letting go.

for the first time,
i am not afraid of love