Who are you outside of my apartment door?
Someone with the capacity to entertain sadness
other than yours. You don't tell others what they already know- hating yourself is counterproductive. You can show patience
for an over-apologizer who cannot catch their breath. You're an expert at comfort as your tongue grows bouquets of lilacs to soothe, whispering sweet nothings. You believe in that place to plant them.
You're nobody's apparition but mine. So I welcomed your black shoes and wiped them off in the welcome mat of my brain matter.
Those footprints aren't yours, just as you don't eat animals alive, but you still are
and I am just a bone.
You're not in search of something to taste. You are merely repulsed by the thought of the remains. You simply love more because of your sophisticated palette.
You paddleboat on the coast, secretly embarrassed to admit you're happy, but cannot help condemn the curve of your lip. You hate to admit it, but you are someone who enjoys being alive. You think being a nihilist is a choice; someone just wakes up one day with the will to withdraw while indulging
the world without consequence. You don't poison yourself just to withstand two hours in the same room. You find vigor in the softness of the skin that is not mine, you feast, but you share a table.
You have your sunglasses on- they aren't atop the fireplace where I kept them safe in my backpack. I wished I had kept them. I believe the vengeful spirit will always come back for what was theirs. But that is not who you are.
And it would really just be another reason
to see you again.
You are someone who returns, but not to my arms.

I see your parched lips
like that of a dying rose,
the small cracks forming
are like an indentation of their own.

You speak in that same tone they once called me,
as if it isn't patronizing
to be treated as a child,
despite having adult skin.

This treatment makes me wiser
of the cruelty of love
or even the fear in thinking it exists.
The lost luster,
apparent just in this one bad day
and I remember the reoccurrence of rain,
with its strange heat smacking my face
I wore the same look you have now.

The feeling of leather,
the hurt of words,
an admission in not knowing what one was doing even in their creation.
It is not a need,
to water our own flowers that wilted so long ago.

I have established their presence,
but we still try.
Life blossoms through you,
those opportunities
the talent,
the potential
and urge to believe
you can trust somebody
to do better than you’re doing yourself.

There it is,
this beautiful symptom
and these gardens the cause.
The same thirst
we all died from as a sprout,
same blood we shared
being clipped too soon and
placed in a vase.

To shrink my resentment for
how open wounds heal faster
than any other part of me. The heart
is the last to leave the fight; blood, carnage
always willingly bright eyed
and bushy tailed at the idea
of opportunity. These eyes,
wet + tired of having to see,
to blink. My heart to
believe I write
things worth reading. This brain
to avoid the guilt in
taking up space in my skull
where words rented out vacancy.
My tongue, encouraged to
speak something meaningful
enough to save every life,
but mine. These stupid
words, verse like munchausen syndrome.
I cannot breathe or survive
on poetry. Why
would I ever want these words
to draw your blood? They already siphon mine with poison. I am already
guilted with anxiety and creation
remains only as rumination.

Already lost myself. There
is no beauty and
I can't make everyone
else lose me too.

I'll wake up
this afternoon
write something happy,
manifest it as truth.
believe in it like
a scar compensates
enough to prove
pain to be real. Like
this ink
proves I'm insistent
that I bleed.

At sixteen, I was easily impressed with conversations of tattoos, septum rings, and pipedreams that internal biases created a tendency to wonder if you’d smoke those too in the art room.
When you spoke of the desire for a “creation of Adam painting to be inked across the canvas of your arm.”
I was enchanted though, unaware my embrace and unorthodox philosophy of loving the dead back to life would never work; I mourned in consumption of you and remained in a ramshackle shelter where we had class together.

An oxymoron, truly.

There was something sinister that washed down the room's rusted sink than your murky paint water. Every day, as if on schedule I lamented the opening of my veins in preparation for the inevitable.
You re-arranged yours with the help of a syringe and my mind questioned how best to save your life.
The focus of my grief was full of wonder in who would die first, but at least loved.
I began to know, the meaning of fixation so well, my lips tasted different even a shared laugh felt pathetic, but not as much as knowing neither of us could drive.
I became your girlfriend Suicide, experienced and immersed in toxicity.
I hated myself so passionately in undoing myself so vigorously all in act of loving you.
Breaths were not allowed unless you said so.
My world became the word "sorry"- your prevalent command, love should not make you guilty in having a heart that beats.
But it was like a ******* thunderstorm when you opened your mouth,
"Are there are any tats you want?"
  I remember you asked.

Today, I am aware of just how little I knew what I wanted.
I had sworn it was my mother's birthdate in Roman numerals, you disapproved and all in the spirit of mourning... I compensated and titled every poem about you in a similar fashion with the day we met,
but these journals had become a grave and shared spaces a graveyard.
Until sixteen, I was incapable of understanding this kind of ache.
I lied to myself,
that the mourning ceased in this season of my life, worse- I was your Adam.

An everlong ache.
I wish it had put me in my place because I did practically the same, instead of just blades that dug in
like your dulled needles, the pain felt in awareness never was. Always so obedient.
You held that deflated balloon filled with ****** over my head every moonless night in your mother's apartment.
I had to have known to beg was not love.
This was worship, utterly painful,
I recognize the role I have long feared as a martyr.
Your claim that I had made you so sad you couldn't feel anything became an incapacity for me though,
the sacrifices made in justifying broken things
function with the belief of no reparations are needed
and rather everyone should be as broken as you are.

You taught me the bruises from your crooked teeth landscaping my throat were entitlement.
Ownership.
These colors upon my flesh never meant you needed me.
You never wanted me, adamant you deserved me.
I was of convenience. This pain gave me something.
You were responsible for my rebirth, shut the door.
Another door opened that revealed who you are, rather another scar canvassing my body that I live with the intent of tattooing over.

To open my ribcage,
ink would spill around
***** feet and form
verses created inside this
sad sea of a mind, drowning
what surrounds. A firm
believer in common courtesy,
but not for myself as I never
write the line where I survive
maybe at least one
where I float above the surface &
remember to breathe.

He broke his neck thirty years ago
I break mine more with each
promise of keeping you in my life
but Ian Curtis is on my mind a lot,
grieving for souls I will never know.

Some of his songs are so sad,
like hearing the premature
snap of his bones

Cannot help but resent
how clever society is
to glamorize the unglamorous,
even I am aware
the flowers upon graves are not just for
aesthetics, but we are still always trying
to cover terrible tragedies
with beautiful things.

Am I just as guilty?

I cheat on you with him.
His spirit through my headphones,
hoped if I listen intently
the narrative changes.

purple marks on your neck
just that weekend you
taught me what a hickey was
and how they felt good

yours’ declare ownership,
not declarations of love.

You walk into art class,
purple painted across your throat.

If love could save Ian,
had I lived in the mid-seventies
he may very well have lived forever
and his throat painted by love,
rather than the bruises of a noose.

The letters I wrote you were in vain,
my mistake quoting those Smiths’
songs:
Morrissey is an *******
and so are you.

I still
am too scared to
wonder how far I am willing
to go
to reap the benefits of sorrow.

"New Dawn Fades"
tears into my heartstrings
feeling responsible in
the prevention of another
suicide

I grapple onto
what a savior complex was,
your dead father
the tracks on your arms made me cry
but I thought it was stupid.
It made me hate myself more
why could I not learn to undo
my drive to save anyone,
but myself

The phone call
where I broke up with
you and you
pretend to
overdose on the speaker

One of us had to grow up,
had to make it out alive
And I love you again,
every time Ian's ghost
sings Isolation.

And I leave you there,
sure, to end the album
after the final song.

In sixth grade,
I wrote a letter to David Bowie
addressed to his New York home never knowing
a girl named Kamryn exists,
but I thought I was special enough
for a world-renowned rock star to reply
or care enough about some pre-teen angst

I shared with him how my grandma Pam
chose drugs over (I know now an addiction has many more complex layers)
getting to know her grandchildren or
to love her son, but then I remembered-
this is David ******* Bowie, he's lived life
with ******* in his bloodstream for thirty years prior

Maybe, I mentioned it all
because I wanted to feel special,
like the way, I think dying young
will create that for me. It's stupid
how I painfully so-identified as
"the girl with the mousy hair"
and the piano aiding an eloquent
discussion about the world's disarray
in which I selfishly identified as my own
"Life on Mars" always felt like a personal performance
just for me, but at twenty-one, it isn't just a song
and I still lay awake wondering if Mars and I
share a similarity, we want life to ebb
so distinctly within us both.

The answer after being asked,
"How I'm doing?" was caught in my airway.
So I take a blade
and slashed across my throat-
Ink oozed from the seeping wound,
stanzas splashed across each page,
putting a hand upon my chest,
I felt purpose-
ripped it out.
My heart it bleeds,
in truths of me and
in thoughts of you.
The wonderment of what it was
that coursed through my veins,
describing the phenomenon
of how it rains,
or we allow ourselves to express pain.
Losing blood
and shying away from what other's think,
when transfusion began
they gave me ink.
Speaking of honesty,
I promise you-
when fear takes over,
I'll write for me &
I'll write for you.

My body is the bird
between a dog's gnashing teeth;
feathery and tossed. Potential
bruising in need of nurturing
or some ice. Even agony requires
a place to put its' head down at night.
For the comings and goings of
loveless transactions upon myself.
My body is also a broken bone,
desperate to fashion itself back together.

The whole of me--
empty pill bottle after pill bottle
hoping to fill itself up,
full of space, so capable of suffocation.
When tipped over on its' side, it's a spitting image
of the father I've only ever known
to run from anything that comes undone

I am also the snaggletooth
belonging to the woman of whom
I belong to. I have hit the radial artery
with my eyes

Bleeding out seems titillating,
but I refuse to touch my pout to
Death's puny ****. It's a danger to touch
skin-to-skin, bound to get addicted.

For fear of closeness,
for fear, we become too much alike.
My face is the same as the blood in the sink,
inspired by neglect and the old war in my head.
For fear, sour breath can't be manipulated,
for fear, we'll share the same pair of eyes.

It starts with the difficulty
I have
in seeing you as human,
as if sharing the same blood only
inflicts disease.
Both damaged creatures
inside
I'm filled with love for
the undesired.
As if I am diseased,
having been taught many lessons
in human agony
and I am resentful of my empathy
burrowed for awhile
then gone forever
never felt entitled to any
of the tears I've cried, have never
felt entitled to
what I've been put through.
Back in the 90s, I can see
that tube down your throat
and I feel it too

vacuumed the contents of my stomach
but I doubt they were equipped to clean
up the clutter and dander
still, I write about you
in the spirit of your suffering
like the rat
who missed its'
poisoning

You are a decrepit home
and I am a crowbar,
familiarizing myself with your insides.
I am not rusting from the waterbed,
my skin is not tarnished.

I am strong and bludgeoning the windows,
there's blood, beneath your gums
as I swing, knock out your teeth-
this time,
I am inside of you.

Your knuckles fail,
with the first blow;
broken, unable to push down
the folds of my underwear.
I plant a bruise like a kiss
on your right cheek, erupting
into a display of consequences
for your actions.

In my dreams, I scream
your name. Under the surface, I am your messiah
with the sunrise of bruises tracing my broken rib.
I am your adam, using my pain to create
strength.

It should be the most desired sight of all
the person whom you hope to live and die
so, this fire feels like love against our skin
we ramble on, in stasis,
caught ablaze and smoke
fills our lungs. There are sirens too loud
and too few to do any rescuing.

Kiss me you, fool.

Before the sky envelops us,
there's a mammoth of an alien
peaking through the sky's cracks,
tentacles grabbing.

No mercy.

There are no words,
for stars littering the sky
at daylight, and there's no use
in semantics for what unravels
in front of us.

But mathematics and optics,
equations letting sight pierce
through time. We are gorgeous as
we gasp for air, our life forces divided,
and allotted to some place distant.

What would our ancestors say?
Too proud to hike up death's skirt
and steal a look. Isn't this what we are?

Hungry.

Would they be proud
or would we be considered fools
to think we are untouchable?
Why not let our lips spark like
the bolts igniting the sky,
why not resort ourselves to ghosts
and haunt each other's great relatives

Shouldn't we give in
and behave as if
we're the last of our kind?

I never liked people who call trauma "interesting"
especially in reference to those white raised lines
cascading skin, or young worship of praying
for the hurt to stop in my sleep.

Devoting years to stupid diets,
melting away the jiggle of my thighs,
sometimes when I indulge, my brain receives texts
but I don't reply.

You certainly don't, so why
should we give energy to the notion,
I am only as interesting as my suffering. Saving
ourselves isn't a definitive moment,
though I strive to find purpose within myself,
slivers who I'm meant to be
come through
in conversations with you.

All those years,
living life like an obituary. I want
to show you I'm more than a picture
that told herself shallow things like,
ugly people are a statistic and pretty
people are a portrait-
these things bore me.

But your head resting between my thighs
as I hold you

doesn't

knowing our imperfections
keep us young

doesn't

a meaningful life in love

doesn't.

It is not your fault.
You only know that,
it is in your nature to
know pain
like the back of your hand
as you administer it

To know,
children, little girls
are to be docile dolls
in which resentment can be  
hidden under the dress
that's the perfect color
in the tulle, we twirl
and do this dance
it is but, fate's job
for the strings to be cut

The puppeteer, songstress must go down. Her children
to be reborn as the next soprano.

You have ached and
your agony was ignored
so you demonstrated it
you sang with the voice
of the unheard

and somewhere, perhaps,
like the phantom you are
when we both sing, it is the same song
and our throats warble at the same time
in unison
our voices are capable of more love
then we were for each other

The lavender surrounds me
that my head will lull into
and my eyes will open
aware it disappeared
and so you fade like
the aged oak that once carried me in its' arms
that lived on 409
and the desire to cross that
street one more time

Ed and his wife are likely
no longer with us
but I wonder what it's like
to not have to make the effort
to have a home
seek you out
and want you
to still be in its' life
but I wonder if I stand here,
next to that stop sign
where I caught up to it
in size

find a piece of you that remains in this world
I can feel the softness of your palm
that never was
I almost know what it feels like to belong
someone's love to pour over me
and not feel greedy or ashamed for needing it so badly

I ache
to be held
to be touched
A moment of tenderness,
touch of my shoulder blade.
dad's warmth for me died
when you did
I wonder if it is selfish
to inquire, that you come home
your spirit can live in my heart
possess me like you want me
as if being my mother
was a privilege

Dad told everyone at my graduation party,
I was unplanned and that lavender where
he and I felt it in our hands,
he put a bushel in my hair
pushes me away
in the home of my own mind.

It whispers, it tries to tickle my arm
but it tricks me and admits
what my own parents, alive and dead
refuse to do.

Resentment has always made its home
in my arms, like warm candlelight caressing
my face as I give life to the wick
It always stings, as your palms did
or not knowing ******* the things
inside of you that made you want to die

I wonder
if it was
the same
when you were
a child

Projector screens play,
movie reels in sermon preach,
how to breathe

Love will set us free.
Heartstrings strumming songs for you,
angel. Hum with me.

Broken-record words,
twirl in the lobes of a brain.
Don’t play again.

Look me in the eye,
ask if I’m alright.
I might just tell you a lie.

Limp cloth tries to dance our silhouette to life,
White, paper, teeth, famished for ideas of
you & I- in the same sentence.
The light’s glare, that I should look toward
is imprinted in my mind.  There’s a look of
yours I’ve familiarized myself with, it is all-knowing.
You lick your lips as a sign of defeat.
We’re both stalemates to time,
its’ unforgiving mark- bound to be alone.
Always afraid of change, taking place.
Is there redemption? Or are we fated to smother?
Is there a pardon? I’m left here.
Though, the seasons do change, leaves falling,
as our patience wears thin of each other.
Here I am, left to tend
to the non moving skeletons, we both surrendered.

Is there redemption or are we fated to smother?

Wish I knew how to write about happy things,
and everyone I knew didn’t have such troubled heads.
So when, very rarely, I say a prayer-
a part of me knew which part of the fire to put out.
We can hold hands, smoldering the smoke
but we all know-- we are the fire starters.
And these insincere prayers leave us empty,
while making me a liar. Because I don’t believe in
the initiative of a higher power.
And though we are the fire starters,
have been the fire bringers there is
power inside of us to end the fire.
If only close contact could ***** out the flame.
I know the smoke will remain surrounding us,
no matter how tightly we hold one another.

Three long years have passed,
your name no longer inspires
the movement of scars growing
down my thighs. There is no more
wishing it were different.

How could I have known, the type
of person you would be? When you sold me
tragic stories and blown out veins.

Addicted to the addiction of saving
someone from themselves, but who
would dare rescue me? I buried
your memory and in its' place
a garden blooms, every scar fades.

Each day I work toward peace,
forgiving and forgetting your solemn face.

You were in need of a fix,
I had become of your drug of choice,
now-
in learning,
I am the heroine of my own story.

Life has the tendency to feel like a prozac commercial,
the reality that everything either pops or goes up in the air.
I see my little sister's gapped smile, in the soapy reflection-
her joy should be infectious, but it spreads guilt like a plague
to my already tortured mind.
I feel so guilty,
for wanting to take my life.

I was fifteen years old.

Holding your heartbeat between my hands,
watching wrists restrained to wires,
attached to monitors reading your chest.
As the child, I did not want my mother to leave me,
but instead, I chose not to leave you.
There was not any time left to admire
the natural color of your hair showing through,
stealing a final glance at your emerald eyes.
When the overcast of death held you firmly,
I find myself loathing what it is capable of.
Only in a hospital gown,
were you swept off your feet.

Death’s arms pulled at what piece
of you I still cradled,
reminiscent to the time I held
a bird with a broken wing,
helpless.
I tried to put it back into the nest,
but the mother rejected it.
Your body rejected medicine
the same way.

I have been myself, from
the outside looking in. The soul
a darker shade, where no blossoms
dare to bloom.

An experience of postpartum with poetry.
I yearn for ink to snuggle close, staining my arms
from the elbow down to my calloused palms.

Cradle close, soft cries-
it feeds from the paper's ******,
tender flesh that leaks words.

This child hungrier than I.
But the spirit is famished for
more than my body and mind can give.
These blossoms, dreary in gray
monochrome. I pour my heart out
to this infant haiku, that must grow more.
Though, nothing worth
saying appears.

Totally peaceful beyond the hydrangeas,
Dusk is now swallowed by Earth’s mouth.
Spirit’s make their entrance, saying goodbye.
Birth of other souls, continuous.
There is strange luminous, breath in the wind.

We grasp at waves, catch the clouds passing by-
And we float, ethereal above its' parting lips.
Entrance returns, birth.

Opaque grieving, translucent during reprieve.
Tethered to this world, we think we can retrieve
its broken parts.
All our hearts out of control,
and our wounds in front.

Where dreams are chasing us.
Chasing before our lives can be more.
When does it end? When can we be anything
more than what has bent?

Beyond the hydrangeas, the moon is swollen and glowing,
soon-to-be mother to a whole new generation of lovers,
and hope is pregnant with the that thought that lessons can be learned,
and I am hopeful forgiveness can be earned.

I envisioned walking on water
outside my window, it twinkled
and sparkled- dancing by the aid of the sun.
The sun was something I could be
if I tried hard enough, I could kiss it
and feel holy.

But life cannot be enjoyed
when there is a screen keeping you
from the parting splash.
Of course, there is work to be done.

Sunlight is inside me,
and I am warm.
Though, it burns
I ache to exist purposefully.

The becoming of the reflection
whose face I’ve never taken the time to know.

It shows the repetition of a woman that I fear.
The shadow calls me, it lives here.

The white noise of my thoughts
ran out of ways to make suicide plausible.

Illness, like an imprint on the brain
where serotonin is slow to the nervous system.

I took the cocktail in the paper cup,
when my own maternal attitude
wiped away those tears.
I took the cocktail in the paper cup,
when poetry no longer screamed in my ears.

Starvation of love isn’t so unheard of-
you’re the same scrawny boy. A child who
yearns for acknowledgement. That you are more
than just the mistakes our parent’s made.
You find a way to reach your way
back into the crevice of their hearts.
But you’re just a phase,
some children who grew up too fast-
leave behind.

I have also dug into my flesh,
to make sure the veins worked- that I am alive.
But you are no needle, you are a user.

Hungry and begging,
Wanting to devour.
The humble skin protecting the collarbone,
Midriff exposed, taste of your lips inspires,
Sparks to ignite and burst.
Busting open my mouth,
Teeth falling out.
Intimacy is such a fear,
Unsure if love can exist in my *****,
or if it is an untouchable force.
Because my fire was stolen,
before it burned.

Grey wash of the sky, sleeping softly.
As I try to fall in love with the world in front of my eyes.
Drain plug of the Earth polluting bright hues,
That once lived;
There's a parasite underneath my skin, that floods me.
There's a marionette, bowing gracefully over my head,
In the cloudless space- it dawdles on empty intent,
My brain matter falls in puddle,
The acidic strain,
Reflecting a rainbow of thought
I can't obtain.

Why must death tarnish,
all beauty that once was?
The rose color in my cheeks wilts,
and a wreath of hospital bracelets,
looms over my head.

My existence has the desire,
to smother your heart-
in my memoriam.

Though life never felt meaningful;
babies breath did not sprout from my throat,
not every word I speak is made from beauty.

Sickness does take it’s place below my feet,
in my genes.
But the crown of thorns, cancer will one day call my name
in the moment of a better mind frame.

The loved ones who could sympathize for ulcers
in my stomach,
can justify the
malignant tumor that grows,
taking the place of a life
that I’m able to flourish in.

I was your little girl,
Who swells in hives at the thought of bees.
And I wonder-
If my skin grew blue upon entering the world,
with that umbilical cord noose
Around my throat.

Would you have differentiated
fear
from
love?

Each sting,
a red handprint
Serving as a childhood memory
on our grand search for the big dipper
not through imprints covering my skin
like speckled constellations.

Could your arms have choked love into me?
As a form of protection from the world,
Or the terrifying thoughts in my brain.

Should have been my mother bird.
A broken wing no cause for concern,
you take your feathers,
mending me.

I was your little girl,
Rolling in the grass,
barefoot and happy.
Dad talks about me like I’m a pastime-
He can’t escape.
How does a father speak about their child,
in the same way,
people express distaste for smoking?


Hope he doesn't
think of me,
Like a painful itch.
When he chain smokes
His time left in clouds.

But I feel the resentment
And his suggestion that I bring decay into his life.

My dreams are often hidden truths,
Nobody, in reality,
dares to speak.
Admitting what he’s too afraid to say.
Last night his words stinging like a bee,

Body, you had no suitor
When honesty is lost
courage could not have been misplaced worse
  by anyone else  
than my failures.

We never belonged-
A wallflower
to the dance of life.

Happiness, you are too big of a concept
For this head.
I dreamt of you in dances,
Being dipped into the sunlight.
Reborn by possibility
and bathing in the glow
that could handle the portrayal of a shadow
so dark

Shadow, you will soon feed
And I shall be consumed,
just  as you wanted.
Light, I wish I would have asked,
For your blessing.

Yearning for the day
where a mother kissing
her child
does not break
the pieces of my heart;
I reclaim as my own.
Yearning for the hour we talk again
and you call me: ”your love"
Yearning to remember the feelings
of your hands lulling my weary mind
back into sanity.

Yearning for your lips to cover
what the past left on my arms
yearning for emerald eyes to feel like home again
Yearning for my father's heart to invite me
into his life,
yearning for "soul mates" to mean something,
the yearning that love won't always be absent

We’re always having these discussions about
God and
my unorthodox question:
if the stars belonged to the souls of delinquents,
Laughter filled the air, we were breathing in
while carbon dioxide was rolling off your tongue.

What a waste of youth,
I pollute this sky.
Looking at the clouds,
perceiving their shapes is such a bore.

Three minutes, twenty-eight seconds
Without a thought,
you offered friendly affection
, clutching the wheel.
Hands flooded purple in your tight grip

This felt out of character

you saw something that had to be fixed
in me,
I dozed off.
Vague dreams-
Swirled around the car
then
Debris buried me.
When I wake up,
Its fragments are cakes under my nails.

Had the world shifted?
Or is it these thoughts?

Has the world shifted or is it my thoughts?
The person sitting next to you is a shapeshifter.
That chip on my shoulder too big to be diminished
just wreckage, please, climb out
Crash.
Fantasized our vehicle rolling
Off the highway.
Encouraged you to go on
Flourish in the life you thought was impossible.
Old friend, what a delightful time I had.

Please remember a grin
and it’s childlike two.
Fondly recalling the first ride.
You had said,
“I’m glad you’re in my life.”


Sorry, I bummed so many rides,
Nobody trusted me to drive.
Sorry, I asked so many questions about the afterlife.

Old friend.

I knew you to be forever young,
mother permanently thirty-nine
calloused skin, brittle haired woman.
You'd certainly scold me for
my lack of bedtimes.
Mountains in Havre
captured youth-
and tea parties in the backyard
there's so much to learn
from your songs unsung-
lung cancer has a contrived way
of expressing its attachment,
it cannot live without you.
I know you to be younger than I,
forever.