you remember his lips on
yours, how they felt like tar and you knew he was something
you did not want to stick to. the aftermath was like climbing out of a
net while covered in honey, he told you, smiling, how sweet you
were but you’re clenching your fists waiting for the
bees. sting me here and here and here and
here, cut off my hands so i never have to know what
losing your child before it’s fourth
birthday feels like.

when you were little, your
mother used to read you bedtime
stories about princes and dragons and lots of happy ever
afters. but where is the ‘after’ when your best friend
hates you? where is the
‘before?’

your therapist is reading you an
eliot poem in hopes it’ll calm you
down, in hopes you’ll replace memories of that
boy with bob
dylan and that couch with thoughts of empty
fields. every time it comes into your
head, bob won’t write songs about
you and the field screams ‘i am not
empty, i am
open.’

call you Vada, accuse you of being in
love with your teacher and killing your
mother; the first thing you ever ruined on
accident. you wish you were thomas
j, you wish you were genetically pre
dispositioned to crumble like a heart made of
sand when a bee sticks himself
into you.

your best friend won’t be your
best friend anymore and you’re ripping pages out of the
calendar and swallowing january
whole, there’s more ways to die than to stay
alive. suicides are their own
language, the suicidal are like
carpenters, they always ask ‘what
tools’ instead of
‘why build’.

you’re begging to the god your best
friend believes in to let you die
young. every minute of the
afterward feels like one more
tally on his list of worst
betrayals. satan is
smiling because you’re playing the game he
invented.

but what if the devil
doesn’t know he’s the devil?

it started out with a crash and a
blast and it ended in a mouthful of
bees.