For once in always
Nobody is home
And I rummage deeper
And deeper
Into the depths of the paper stacks
Crumpled notes smeared with blood
From broken hearts
Letters of apology stained
With lie after lie after lie

They stabbed her in the chest
Like martyrs for love
But they ever so slowly
Killed her.
She didn’t eat a lot.
She didn’t have the words
To say, “I’m afraid you’ll leave”
Until now

When she leaves him.
Years after he pushes her children
Poisons her soul with words foul
Enough to eliminate it
And after she scraped my teenage life
From the sidewalk she said
Know this: it was never your fault.
And she left him.

Erased from memory as if he never happened
Crumped notes in my room
Stained with Rubinoff and milky pens
Shoved in shoe boxes
For the next me to find one day
In the paper stacks