i do not have the words for this
i feel them tearing and clawing at my throat
like a name on the tip of my tongue
like a forgotten answer to a test
that is just there, just there

i do not remember my mother's funeral,
or if you were there
but i wish i could go back
not for her
but so i could drag you by my side
and dig my fingernails into your arm
so that i would not be bleeding alone

most of my love is ugly
it's vicious and it wants you to hurt as much as i do
while, like i'm watching a tennis match between twin hermes,
my thoughts vascillate so fast

i dream that we meet in a grey haze
it might be the first place i saw you
(a kitchen, i was 12, you were 29, and i loved you then
in a way i did not yet know, and still don't)
in this dream i let you fold me into you
and squeeze the breath out of me
i wake up and wander the day, dazed and chilled

when you found me last year
sobbing with drunken abandon into my sleeves
do you know how you crushed my heart in between the teeth of your words
and gave me back something i knew how to use
i'm not saying it's gotten easier for me
i'm just saying i know a better way to survive

like the funeral, i can't even remember what you said

now i am 23, and you are 39
and i am learning not to deny that
i love you in that mysterious way
leftover from the last hurrah of my childhood
and this new, ugly way
that makes me want to clench bruises into your arms
while i tell you exactly how you make me feel
(it would be a revelation to us both)

you are my brother in sorrow
and i would give anything to know
how tight you could hold me
and if it could take me back
to that moment, alone in the church i grew up in
when i said goodbye to my mother
among other things