I started writing in second grade and couldn’t spell, but
I tried to be honest about how I felt that
the world seemed just a little too unfair to
consider God
really had the best penmanship.

Because etched concrete contains my family picture, now.
And a day won’t pass where you don’t hear how
somewhere else someone else is just like you but
also just a little worse off.

I felt it first in the floorboards
as voices gave a steam-engines warning.

The wrinkles on this page weren’t necessarily acquired over time
But through frustration from lies and
that day someone said to you things were just fine
when
I felt the splinters forming in my spine, digging-

I was holding
on to rotten
ply-wood, cracking
Fingers
Nails
Digging-
Breaking.

The vacant house now has a yard full of dandelions
but I hold my breath

as I force a poem
from rigor mortised fingers:

What doesn’t **** you
Will only leave you