last Easter I wrote a poem for you
with rhyming words and beautifully constructed stanzas
about the way your hair looks and the way I wanted you and the way things were changing but -
April came back around all too fast this year and I don't write poems like I used to.
this isn't poetry.
this is October nights with glazed eyes,  burning throats and so much trauma, so much trauma, so much ******* trau-
this is November afternoons smoking my lungs black and tears that i drowned in for every day of that month.
this is December mornings when I spent all my money on Christmas decorations because I thought it would be my last.
this is New Years Eve, clutching her back and sobbing into her shoulders because I couldn't believe I made it - how the hell did I make it?  this is me thanking her, and her, and her too for stitching me back together. this is champagne and the grace of God.
this is February when you came back to me  and as much as i wanted to throw dirt back in your face, I held onto it in hopes of planting something new.
this is March when it wouldn't stop snowing.
this isn't poetry.
this is April,
this is me taking the dirt and burying the idea of us six feet under.
this isn't poetry,
this is Spring and this is the last time you will be mentioned with it.

it only took one week for you to re-light the candle,
and it only took me six words to set afire
(i'm so sorry i ****** up)
you were reckless with heat and i was so easily flammable and ******* for coming back when you did

there's always been a whole lot of grey between us
it wasn't black and white from the start
i was always making exceptions and you were always doing the wrong thing,
but making it seem so right

it feels like the butterflies in my stomach have turned into bees
stinging and buzzing whenever we talk and
im far past the school-girl crush, with sweaty palms and shy giggles
my hands are shaky and there's a lump in my throat because this isn't romance anymore,
this is red eyes and fractured ribs.

you keep referring to her as "a mistake"
but i keep hearing you say "i want her back"
and i wish you knew that the more you try to disguise your anger as indifference,
the more apparent it is that you wish things were different.

i will always be the altarboy,
i will always wait for you on hands and feet.
i will never be enough for you.
*i will never be enough for you

Kissing him sounded like wailing sirens,
a traumatic experience already in motion

Your Dad was never around to teach you things
like riding a bike, or how to ask for the things you want
so you own a dirt bike now and steal for the thrill of it.
I still think you turned out just fine.

I  want to romanticize the way it felt to feel your presence but always being at such a distance from you,
but its hard to make something so painful sound poetic.

Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it all, just a little bit.

You'll call some other girl "babe"
and I'll change my mind
the same way the leaves go from green to red and
one day I won't think of trauma when I hear your name,
I won't be calm when I sense danger,
and I won't be at peace when I hear sirens wail.

A cell is not a home,
those bars keep you too far away.
We all try not to think about it too much,
and like this we keep ourselves sane.
We dance around the topic and I pretend not to hear Mom howling at night because if I don't acknowledge it, then it doesn't exist.
Has your vision faded to black and white?
Do you pretend that if you don't see the colour orange hanging from your body,
that you're just in another place?
Another empty room?
Another lonely night spent with  strangers at a location you're trying to make home?
You've always liked the way your hair looked long,
do you still like it now?
Have you began to hate the things you once loved yet?
Like cartoons, or colouring books, or the drugs that twisted and knotted your brain cells?
The drugs that sent you there?
The drugs that keep you there?
Have you began to resent every memory you have of us growing up?
Who do you see when you have nightmares?
Whose name do you curse when you awake in a cold sweat?
A cell is not a home
and those bars are going to ruin you.

"If I could paint a picture of how we used to be,
it would be a landscape of a field
with sunflowers that all look the exact same.
The exact same.
Over and over and over again."