The thing I am most grateful
for is that when my heart broke,
it broke open.

And I am told to just forget you
Like I haven’t seen your soul
The way you breath and live
And
How I didn’t show you
Where I hide my scars
And why I don’t cry.

It is Thursday
And my father tells me about
My stepmother.
Apparently she
Has been using a pandemic
To make my father feel inadequate
Because she is a high school teacher
My father never graduated high school
And my little brother is now to be homeschooled.
I tell him I can’t do it anymore
That the negativity is too much
That it sounds like he is making her problems
His own.
That it sounds like
He is still in a relationship
With her.
If she is so insecure
That she must use her profession
To make-up for her ability to mother
It is her problem
And not something we need to address or deal with
Because it is her problem
Not ours.
I tell my father
That he has already divorced her
That he is not in a relationship with her
And need not hold on to her problems
Like we have a stake in them.

That evening
My father is not present
For dinner at 6:30,
Which has become
The custom time we eat dinner
As a family.
This tells me
That what I said
May have been all too accurate.
I wonder if my step mother is right
To criticize him
Right to point out
That he has some **** to deal with
Before he can provide a stable home.
I eat dinner alone
At the dining table.
The only light on in the house
Is in the kitchen and my brother’s bedroom
The rest of the house lies in silence.
I am eating my dinner in the dark
With the lights on.

It is the hight of COVID-19 pandemic
It is said that 1 to 200,000 people
Will die this week.
My mother calls me twice.
The first time
I silence my phone.
She leaves a message
And calls again,
So I answer it,
I tell her I am busy.
She tells me she is outside
And has something for me.
I walk out
Into the unnaturally warm night.
She is in her car
Waiting in the driveway.
She looks thin,
I can see
That she still hasn’t put on the weight
That is natural and becoming
To her body.
I wonder if she has yet
To seek treatment
Or therapy.
She hands me a cd
Wrapped in paper towel
And secured in a plastic sandwich bag.

We are advised to not touch anyone
Who does not live with us
It could further spread the virus.
I have not seen her in at least a year,
But when she reaches out for a hug
I embrace her
As if she has not
Abandoned us.
I still have love for her.

So
When I follow you on Instagram
I am sprouting a seed of forgiveness
Because
Being the bigger person
Does not mean being bitter or stubborn
It means being honest with yourself.
And
I still have love for you.

It was fitting
That it rained every day that summer
The clouds hung low
And pressed precipitation into the pavement
The sun was shining and the streets were glistening
The atmosphere came down to our level
As though to say
You are grounded
The grass was green
As though to say
You are alive
And the wind was calm
As though to say
You are still
Mother Nature seemed to be taking maternity leave
To nurture neglected nights
Passed absent of distraction
To water wandering willows
Weeping empty wisdom
The sky cried for us
When we were too busy to pretend to be anything
But grown
Sunken clouds dirtied the horizon
So we could forget that we were not clean
Cumulonimbus occluded the sky
So we did not have to worry about flying away
Held tight our skin secured secrets
Soothed violent visions
Made our minds a bit more watered down.
That summer something changed
In the sharpness of the morning
The sun was no longer a surprise
Sleep became something I did at night
My conversations with you
Became something saved for the last sip
Of a handle of ***
And your name was replaced
With him, you, the boy
You were a dream
I woke up from,
I had been asleep
Long enough.
That summer it was spring
It was the renaissance
Torture was no longer the norm
So I learned to stop loving you
With my hands
Holding fire love
With paper palms
Or maybe I was the fire
And we were paper mache
I still don’t know
If I was the consumer or the consumed
But on the back of a broken trail
I learned to be neither
Do no harm
And take no ****
Be as strong as an oak
Move your home from volcano
To valley
And vacate the wrath of want
That summer
I learned to reconcile
A child’s heart
With adult problems
I learned to raise my character
With a self-esteem that said something
With a throat that echoed more
Than him, you, the boy
That summer something changed
And finally it was me.

Today I am your poet kindly,
The wind has renamed my skin goose bumps
I am not sorry,
My words will not be
Filling you with rage today,
Making a display of what we know
But are afraid to say.

Today I am your poet softly,
I know it may be costly
To avoid an opportunity,
But this is my cop-out poem
Understand that I am mad as hell
Am ****** the *******
I do have **** to strew
But today my words are tired,
Yesterday my pen was heavy with destruction
I brought asteroids to earth
Made malleable a boy's soul
Yesterday my fists were swinging, hardened
But today
You won't find them beating glass ceilings.

To my ex lover,
You may breathe.
I will not be selling your secrets today,
To my family
You may speak freely,
I will not be bringing our living room
To the stage today.

Breathe while you can
Become comfortable where you may
There won't be another fair sailing time
Such as today,
I am your poet strategically,
I will replenish the circles under my eyes
Armies of literary devices will be trained today,
Know that a sword was never made sharp
Without steel first being made soft
And when they know my kindness
They will likewise know my anger
When they know my exhaustion
They will learn of my determination
Creation determines destruction.

Today I am your poet kindly,
Drink your tea friend,
Have a doughnut or two
Today, you do not have to worry
About my syntax exposing you
But keep in mind
How quiet preparation sounds,
A storm may not announce itself
Until it makes landfall.