I keep your ring because it’s a fantastic memory
but what's a memory good for
if you’re never coming back*

It’s a mantra

Too many young people not living long enough
She says

It’s true

She tells me about how a boy
Was found dead in his car the day before
at a community college she goes to

She knows life is fragile
She feels it in the ache in her knees when it’s cold

Her eyes are painful
In their beauty
And understanding
Of the things our stupid bodies do

Our bodies are stupid

Insanely stupid

Cancer is the body attacking itself

And so often we can be cancer for ourselves

In the same way we love our livers
Just to feel numb for a while

Because I’d have never spoken to you
If I still wasn’t a little drunk the day we met

On dance floors
In bars
At house parties
We need something to give us an excuse to **** up

So we can blame it on the cancer
The kind that breaks the ice

This is me breaking the ice
This is me letting things go
This is me doing everything I can
To live for a living

I do a lot of stupid things
Just so I can tell a good story later

and in the end

Even if we get in our seventy
Punch out perfectly

It will not have been long enough

Just ask David
Who knows he will never naturally feel as good
As the coke
And the adrenaline pump of near death experiences

Tells me
About happiest day of his life
Was when his father for the first time
Taught him how to tie a fishing knot
Tells me his father’s hands were the kind of comfortably rough
That only certain men can earn
Rough from the labor
But soft enough never to hurt
Anybody

He regrets not being able to be that man

Don’t let a day go by that doesn’t remind you
That you are made from the same things stars are made of

That at any given moment
You can shine just as brightly

And please **** up
Shameless
Excuseless

**** up for the love
For the smiles

No one ever thought badly of someone who tried and failed

Trying is the bravest thing any one person has ever done

I dare you to try

Try to find something to live for

And live for it

And in the end
I’ll grab her crippled hand
Worn from the life that
Broke them down perfectly
Worn from the years of sign language
And the holding of heads

If we are going to be cancer to ourselves
Let the break down mean something
Break yourself down to make things better

She knows this
Has shown me this

Now I have something to live for
I live for the poetry
And the laughter I cause when I am an idiot
I try so hard to be an idiot
Work my body rough for the laughter

In fact

I live for it