today
i am laying in bed
enveloped in my blue comforter
keeping company
with my bittersweet nostalgia

today
last year
you were eighteen
i was in love

birthday gifts consisting of
shy smiles and secret touches,
i wrapped my hand around yours
like a ribbon bow, and when you
blew out the candles, i wondered what
you were wishing for

today
last year
i was wishing for a future together

today
i am sleeping alone.

today i was thinking about
loss
and how perfect
silence is in its purest form

and i was thinking about
love
and how beautiful
music is to broken ears

and i was thinking about
how there are
a lot of versions
of myself

like playing cards
that are all the same deck
but every face is a little
different from the other

depending upon
the company
holding it
of course

but i was thinking about
which i liked best and
it's the version of me
when i'm alone

all my faces shuffled and
neatly stacked with
those useless jokers turned
inward against the others.

and then i got to thinking about
love and loss again
and i decided upon what
i would really like

and that is to find the person who
i like the version of myself with
as much as i like the version of myself
when i'm alone

and i would like to fall so deeply in
love with them that all my other
losses look to me like
the faces of playing cards.

There's a jukebox,
in my mind or yours,
and it plays my song --
or, maybe, it's for you.
And it says what I
never could say, which is
that I am very sorry.

I thought of how I was --
or how we were --
which was not as good
as we had hoped for.
You protected yourself
from remorse and I was
fearfully unapologetic.

You were, and, probably,
still are a cold *****, and I've
been a ******* for years.
Your nose was so crooked,
it could run for office, and
my head was -- and still is --
really big, which is fitting,
considering my ego, and
ironic, since I'm borderline
mentally-*******-*******.

There's an eroding jukebox
and its so confrontational,
due to feeling inferior,
unrecognized, and without
a responsible purpose.

The music from the machine
flows like rushing thoughts,
and the thoughts say:

I sit and write,
I don't mind you
when I don't know you.

Some people are roots,
meant to help with stability,
but you are a branch,
meant to offer a new view,
but also meant to fall off,
maybe, killing whomever
catches you next.

it doesn't have to be
perfect.

you're cutting demos
not diamonds.

i'm creating paragraphs
not parachutes.

she's drawing pictures
not pistols.

he's constructing bookshelves
not buildings.

we're making differences
not disasters.

we don't have to be
perfect
to be
poets.

i make my bed
four times a year
because when the blankets
are on correctly
it's not easily accessible
to wear as a cape.

and i sometimes wish that
i could get out of my
own
******
head
and open up enough
to love someone
else for once.

i sometimes spray more
perfume on my
pajamas than my
dresses it's not
aromatherapy but sometimes
i calm down.

sometimes i manage to
forget
about these
disturbing
thoughts
just
reverberating
through my mind.

and sometimes i just
fall apart
but sometimes i pull
myself together.

today is the sum
of those times.

minus the pain that youve been giving me all these days. yes, im still doing fine.

Rachel bleached her hair to
Mark the end of something silver -

To counteract the epitaph

An eternal "I was here, and I didn't want to leave"

It all washed up on shore, dead
The same summer most of us
Gave up on God and gave into one another
Or those saints found below the belt

Death is not the color black
It's water growing gradually stagnant, yellow
A slow crawl on all fours to the finish line or a sunset swallow
The faded leather found sourrounding your veracious belt loop

And then there's Elizabeth
Storming down the church aisle to call the whole order off
She'd return to the dive bars in red lipstick
And break hearts through notes written in checkbooks

Cosmic chaos comforts
The living in regard to the dead
We have faith in stardust and song lyrics
A road map, phone number sent through the telescope at a camp sight

But caskets close and
Bodies burn
They scatter on hilltops and
Scream out in stereo

Sleepless slumbers remain
For Rachel and this is her
Peroxide obituary
For a mother gone too soon