listening, alive,
tracing my own shadows
but failing to disintegrate,
bleeding fingers hung up five hundred strips of canvas and what I didn't
paint on I carefully sliced my way through.
remember the day on a playground with a sunset
I carried on, even after the sheets and the day I felt my insides buckle

I think what was worse were the days I cried
to lose a sense of importance in a life other than my own,
I dreamt of her lungs collapsing and I think about driving around my father's driveway in the middle of the night
never sure what anything means but I like how you said "I miss having you around,"
I miss having me around too.

awake, sitting on pillows
thinking about "bluebirds with cancer" and
sometimes last summer laying between your sister's pink sheets in the afternoon.