if i sit long enough
and let my mind
unwind all the
strange
coiled
menacing things
it contains
that i so often
shove into a blender
to make them easier to swallow
it'll say
*******
and i remember them perfectly
anyway.

for
instance
right now
i can hear
mom stuffing black
plastic-smelling
garbage bags
with clothes
in the hall
i can see the strip of light under my door
that bled through
at 3am
why
was it on
i never even
wondered
ever since
i have cursed
the lethargy
of 3am
if i had gone out and checked
i could have

                                                                        stopped
                                                                                                 her

oh
god
it hurts
so profoundly
to put that into words
to translate it from feeling
oh
god
i could have
stopped her
i could have
but i didn't
what if
i had
oh
god
i can't even
bear it

and then all those dead fruitflies
scatter across my mind
blown with the breath
of the dead
i was
walking into our kitchen
on the old
weird
cracked floor
and there on the
stained
blue table
were about six cups of half drunk
juice
from the kids bedtime snack
and there
in the center
were about 500
dead
fruitflies
in a perfect
circle
what the ****
were they doing there
i'll never know
i remember
asking mom
telling her how strange it was
but she wouldn't come
look
she just laid on the couch
her arm over her eyes
lying to me
without saying
anything
always.
the next morning
they were gone
i don't know what happened
but it was
strange

then suddenly
the horrible
nauseating feeling
will come again
rush in
uninvited
like an unwanted relative
sneak in
and take over
everything
it will eat me up
out of house and home
the thought
that

i

can't

remember

if she told me

that she loved me

before i went to bed

i was 18 then

but she always said it

anyway

worst of all

i cannot remember

if i said it back...

the last thing
you ever said to your mother
wouldn't you want it to be something like that
but i guess it wasn't
i probably even thought
about normal things
before i fell asleep
to the music
of my mother
leaving
i can't stop seeing
the scene
when i close my eyes

*******

memory