i had never seen her cry, i realized

my skin was pinched pale
(i hadnt seen the sun in months)
when i came back to this golden-land,
look, from the window:
there goes those yellow hills
there goes the concrete strip mall

the carpet was torn up
and my childhood home was empty,
except for me alone, past artifacts
shoved into plastic boxes
i put on my charms and
we rode our chariot over highway 87

her palace was made of peeling couches,
long rusted cars stacked out in the front
swarming with people looking for
sweet wine in libation, or rolling papers
(whichever they could find first
on the decaying table in the backyard)

i hadnt seen her in 4 months, i had eaten
a pomegranate and was kept down, down
in an ice soaked world with white hallways
i didnt feel real. she called me a ghost
because it didnt sit right for us both
the thought of me, among the living

my brother said words to us both
simple things, wine soaked
but i had just been spit from the earth
and i was tired. she was too, she'd
been tired from the moment she was born,
cut from her fathers thigh

i mourned, then, open mouthed and thundering,
for the life i had left behind
but she just laid her head down, down
and her tears were so quiet i only
noticed them when they stained the fabric
and her face came up sickly red

i do not think i will ever see her cry again