Feb 2014
I passed a girl driving home - All midnight and silhouette.
She was ten seconds, or maybe it was just forty feet from goodbye.
Forty to the pavement.
Forty from crushing, and bone, and twisted up, legs bent into angel wings. Maybe it was forty feet from hello.
I watched the police cars surround her.
Red and blue lights screaming into the night sky, I can still hear their silence.
I parked near the bridge and waited.
Felt like these hands of mine could catch something, maybe a baby bird who leaped from the nest too soon.
Tell her she was important.
Tell her she mattered,
to me,
to this,
to something more than Iowa winter and the leather interior of a police car.
Tell her she had living to do.
Constellation ancestors to make proud.
And boys to fall in love with.
New born daughters to hold, ones to tell they were important,
and mattered,
to her.
When I got home I couldn't stop shaking.
Hands made of glass and rose thorn, I wasn't meant to hold anything, not even myself.
A repeat, a never ending loop, a film strip set on fire in the back of my head, watch the blinding white destroy it from my memory.
It could have been me
It could have been me
It could have been me
It should have been me
I’m a match.
Not a kerosene lamp.
Burning up quick.
I’m not built to last.
I promise.
Two parts destruction and one part **** up.
There are mornings where walking across six lanes of oncoming traffic seem easier than getting out of bed.
There are evenings I spend begging my fingertips to leave my wrists alone.
I've got a sob asleep in my chest, and it will never leave me.
I wrote it out on sticky notes, on my ceiling, asking what ever is above me,
God,
or maybe someone more kind than him,
are normal people this self destructive?
Were all the parts of me, even mine to begin with?
Am I in-debt to this.
This feeling.
This quick stick, explosive dynamite blood.
I was afraid of my shadow at eight, and here I am, afraid of myself at eighteen.
Afraid of what I could do to myself.
I’m the open wound and I cant stop the bleeding.
But there are good days.
Good weeks even.
Weeks where I stop counting my heart beats, where I stop being afraid that they’ll run out.
I will turn my assignments in on time, and stop crying on the drive to school.
I will pay for dinner and laugh at jokes.
I will feel strong enough to catch her. Bridge jumper
But there will be weeks where I am forty feet from the ground.
Forty feet from being six feet beneath it.
I will be the baby bird and she’ll be the one to catch me.
Or maybe we'll meet one another
And we’ll both only be forty feet away from knowing that this isn't the end but the beginning of something better.
She was ten seconds, or maybe it was just forty feet from goodbye.
Forty to the pavement.
Forty from crushing, and bone, and twisted up, legs bent into angel wings. Maybe it was forty feet from hello.
I watched the police cars surround her.
Red and blue lights screaming into the night sky, I can still hear their silence.
I parked near the bridge and waited.
Felt like these hands of mine could catch something, maybe a baby bird who leaped from the nest too soon.
Tell her she was important.
Tell her she mattered,
to me,
to this,
to something more than Iowa winter and the leather interior of a police car.
Tell her she had living to do.
Constellation ancestors to make proud.
And boys to fall in love with.
New born daughters to hold, ones to tell they were important,
and mattered,
to her.
When I got home I couldn't stop shaking.
Hands made of glass and rose thorn, I wasn't meant to hold anything, not even myself.
A repeat, a never ending loop, a film strip set on fire in the back of my head, watch the blinding white destroy it from my memory.
It could have been me
It could have been me
It could have been me
It should have been me
I’m a match.
Not a kerosene lamp.
Burning up quick.
I’m not built to last.
I promise.
Two parts destruction and one part **** up.
There are mornings where walking across six lanes of oncoming traffic seem easier than getting out of bed.
There are evenings I spend begging my fingertips to leave my wrists alone.
I've got a sob asleep in my chest, and it will never leave me.
I wrote it out on sticky notes, on my ceiling, asking what ever is above me,
God,
or maybe someone more kind than him,
are normal people this self destructive?
Were all the parts of me, even mine to begin with?
Am I in-debt to this.
This feeling.
This quick stick, explosive dynamite blood.
I was afraid of my shadow at eight, and here I am, afraid of myself at eighteen.
Afraid of what I could do to myself.
I’m the open wound and I cant stop the bleeding.
But there are good days.
Good weeks even.
Weeks where I stop counting my heart beats, where I stop being afraid that they’ll run out.
I will turn my assignments in on time, and stop crying on the drive to school.
I will pay for dinner and laugh at jokes.
I will feel strong enough to catch her. Bridge jumper
But there will be weeks where I am forty feet from the ground.
Forty feet from being six feet beneath it.
I will be the baby bird and she’ll be the one to catch me.
Or maybe we'll meet one another
And we’ll both only be forty feet away from knowing that this isn't the end but the beginning of something better.
