do not read this poem
it is not made for you
this poem is a secret untold
of a memory I rarely think of
that was resurrected today
and I am the only one who knows it
and this poem is for me alone

I was maybe 5 years old and I both
do and don't remember her falling
spilling out of the giant porch window
like a slippery black fish out of water
and I do and don't remember seeing blood
on the snow and sidewalk and the sound
first of the fall, then someone opening the door
and I didn't understand where she went
instead, I stayed with my grandmother
who told me it was my fault she jumped
she didn't love me any more and I was bad
that she wouldn't be back for me
and I believed it, of course, it made sense
some of us are just born wicked, I knew
I have always been wretched, inhumane
she said she first noticed the evil in me
when I was very little, behind my dead eyes
that it was always there inside of me
so I knew the only way to rid myself
of my own evil was to do the same thing
she had done, all those years ago
so I wrote a letter and labelled it
Do Not Read
the last letter I ever thought I'd have to write
and it's a sad sort of irony that I would be
paying homage to someone who hated me so
but the black fishes and spirits from beyond
never came for me, and I wondered if
the worst punishment of all would be
to continue to be haunted and survive
just as she had all those years ago