do not read this poem
it is not made for you
this poem is a secret untold
of a memory I rarely think of
that was resurrected today
and I am the only one who knows it
and this poem is for me alone
I was maybe 5 years old and I both
do and don't remember her falling
spilling out of the giant porch window
like a slippery black fish out of water
and I do and don't remember seeing blood
on the snow and sidewalk and the sound
first of the fall, then someone opening the door
and I didn't understand where she went
instead, I stayed with my grandmother
who told me it was my fault she jumped
she didn't love me any more and I was bad
that she wouldn't be back for me
and I believed it, of course, it made sense
some of us are just born wicked, I knew
I have always been wretched, inhumane
she said she first noticed the evil in me
when I was very little, behind my dead eyes
that it was always there inside of me
so I knew the only way to rid myself
of my own evil was to do the same thing
she had done, all those years ago
so I wrote a letter and labelled it
Do Not Read
the last letter I ever thought I'd have to write
and it's a sad sort of irony that I would be
paying homage to someone who hated me so
but the black fishes and spirits from beyond
never came for me, and I wondered if
the worst punishment of all would be
to continue to be haunted and survive
just as she had all those years ago
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 6:14 PM UTC
do not read this poem
it is not made for you
this poem is a secret untold
of a memory I rarely think of
that was resurrected today
and I am the only one who knows it
and this poem is for me alone
I was maybe 5 years old and I both
do and don't remember her falling
spilling out of the giant porch window
like a slippery black fish out of water
and I do and don't remember seeing blood
on the snow and sidewalk and the sound
first of the fall, then someone opening the door
and I didn't understand where she went
instead, I stayed with my grandmother
who told me it was my fault she jumped
she didn't love me any more and I was bad
that she wouldn't be back for me
and I believed it, of course, it made sense
some of us are just born wicked, I knew
I have always been wretched, inhumane
she said she first noticed the evil in me
when I was very little, behind my dead eyes
that it was always there inside of me
so I knew the only way to rid myself
of my own evil was to do the same thing
she had done, all those years ago
so I wrote a letter and labelled it
Do Not Read
the last letter I ever thought I'd have to write
and it's a sad sort of irony that I would be
paying homage to someone who hated me so
but the black fishes and spirits from beyond
never came for me, and I wondered if
the worst punishment of all would be
to continue to be haunted and survive
just as she had all those years ago