Remorse in the way your older brothers taught you right from wrong when they told you to stay away from their friends and them.
Laughter in the way the moon told me jokes while she was sleeping beside you,
guilt in the way that I taught you how to drown while your were trying to teach me how to swim,
death in the way you lose people who are still alive.

Absence, the way my father was absent from my life the way a child with cancer would be absent from school.
Horror, the way she probably screams and writhes with your body, and here I am screaming and writhing with a blade again.
Empty, the way my body was on August 25, 2014.
Full, the way the bottles never were.
Dread, the last breath of desire.
Happy, the way I was on the day it rained and your mother forgot my name.
Broken, like the skull of the animal I ran over the other night.

Love, love me like I love inflicting new wounds upon myself,
tolerate the way her breath doesn't make you moan when it moves down your neck,
my breath was like a ghost.

Sadness like that first day of February.
Time change like a car wreck you can't look away from, we call it depression here.

Family.
The way blood means nothing and smiles from strangers mean everything.