Yesterday wasn’t so good.
Sometimes when I think about it,
Yesterday disgusts me.
I don’t feel very comfortable
Talking about it,
But even in the silence,
Yesterday squirms in the back
Of my mind.

Yesterday weighs pretty heavily
On my chest and shoulders.
I hear Yesterday in my cracking joints
And I see it sprinkled across my arms
As scars.

It is very difficult to look forward
When I know Yesterday is
Close on my heels.
I am constantly glancing over my shoulder
To be sure Yesterday hadn’t become Today.

I feel Yesterday deep in my stomach
in my neck and in my ankles
and I feel it in the moments of
Vision-going-black panic
and I’ll-never-sleep-again nights.

My brother reeks of Yesterday.
His name and face are
Constant reminders of the past.
When I see him, hear him, or think of him,
I crinkle my nose at the smell of
Pain and fear
And barely getting by
Fighting to survive
For reasons I could not put my finger on.

My only comfort is that
Even if I crumble into nothingness
Today
Even if in the next moment I collapse
And everything looming above me
Comes crashing down…
Even if Today I die.
I will always be sure that I did not collapse
That I did not stay down
That I did not crumble
That I did not die
Yesterday.