Photograph by Andrea Gibson

I wish I was a photograph
tucked into the corners of your wallet
I wish I was a photograph you
carried like a future in your back pocket
I wish I was that face you showed to strangers
when they ask you where you come from I
wish I was that somewhere you come from every time you get there
and when you get there
I wish I that someone who got phone calls and postcards saying
"wish you were here"
I wish you were here

and autumn is the hardest season
the leaves have all fallen and they fell like they were falling
in love with the ground the
trees are naked and lonely
i keep trying to tell them new leaves will come around in the spring
but you can't tell trees those things
they're like me they just
stand there and don't listen
I wish you were here

I've been missing you like crazy
I've been hazy-eyed staring at the bottom of my glass again
thinking of that time when it was so full it was like we were
tapping the moon for moonshine or
sticking straws into the center of the sun
and sipping like icarus would forever kiss the bullets from our guns
I never meant to fire you know
I know you never meant to fire lover I
know we never meant to hurt each other
now the sky clicks from black to blue and
dust looks like a bruise I've been
wrapping one night stands around my body like wedding bands and
none of them fit in the morning they just
slip off my fingers and slip out the door
and all that lingers is the scent of you
I once swore if I threw that scent into a wishing well
all the wishes in the world would come true

do you remember
do you remember that time I told you I've never seen
anything more beautiful than snow
falling in the glow of a street light
electricity
bowing to nature
mind
bowing to heart beat
this is gonna hurt
bowing to I love you
I still love you

like moons love the planets they circle around like
children love recess bells I still hear the sound of you and think of
outcasts who stutter beneath
braces and bruises and acne
are finally learning that their
rich handsome bullies are never going to grow up to be happy
I think of
happy when I think of you

so wherever you are I
hope you're happy
I really do
I hope the stars are kissing your cheeks tonight
I hope you finally found a way to quit smoking I
hope your lungs are open and breathing this life
I hope there's a kite in your hand
that's flying all the way up to Orion and you
still got a thousand yards of string to let out I hope you're smiling
like God is pulling at the corners of your mouth

'cause I might be naked and lonely
shaking branches for bones
but I'm still time zones away
from who I was the day before we met
you were the first mile
where my heart broke a sweat

and I wish you were here
I wish you'd never left
but mostly I wish you well
I wish you my
very
very
best

remember when she was still little?
remember her room and her toys
that doll she never left home without
do you remember its name?
remember when she jumped in your bed night after night
remember when she screamed in her sleep
remember how her nightmares made her too scared to move
do you remember what she dreamt about?
think of her first day of school
remember walking her to the bus stop
her bouncing with excitement
don't remember her this way.
remember anything but this day.
don't remember how her shoulders shook as you tried to hold her
don't remember her screams
don't remember how she didn't need nightmares to keep her awake anymore
please don't remember the note you found on the carpet
or the window cracked open
please
because even though she couldn't remember her dolls or her curls or how she danced when she got excited
you have to
you have to remember her laugh
you have to remember when she was happy
her mind stole all she remembered about love
about stillness
but you can't
please.
remember her.

love
lust
longing
look
look out
look me in the eye
blue eyes
green eyes
window to the soul
doors
lock
unlock
look
look at me
turn the key
closed
shut
drawn
scribble
stay in the lines
drawn
drown
sink
spiral
fall
fell
help
stop
look out
look for help
look me in the eye
look
see
sea
drowning
you're drowning
splash
dive
swim
water
land
sand
hand
hold my hand
look me in the eye
pick me up
pick
flowers
roses
daisies
your favorite
pick
*****
blood
bleed
bleeding
you're bleeding
stop
look
look at the mess
you are a mess
mess
messy
disaster
earthquake
fault lines
fault
your fault
this is your fault
this
look
look at this
look at me
stop
wait
breathe
look
look me in the eye

I've always wondered what everyone's reactions would be if/when I die. I'd want them to be sad, even if that's not what most people would say after the fact. I wouldn't want to go unmissed. I wouldn't want people to shrug it off like they do most things now. I want them to dwell on it and wonder about the truth and write until their wrists break. I hope you, specifically, wouldn't be mad at me. I'd hope you'd understand that I did want this. I've always seen you as the most understanding when it comes to these things. You could tell them I'm in a better place because that is what they'd want to hear. And maybe I will be. Or maybe I'll burn eternally in hell. Or maybe I'll just cease to exist entirely. Will I even be aware of anything after? Point being, no one knows what happens to me but this is what I wanted and stands as the most courage I've ever built up at once. I don't think it will be scary. I really don't want my death to be the cause of someone else's (I'm crying while writing this as it is so amazingly confident and vain it's almost funny, really). Maybe suicide is a bit selfish, as an old teacher once said. At this point I don't care about my reputation, especially after I'm gone. It is a little worrisome that everything I write ends up sounding like a suicide note. I don't know if I would have the guts to go through with it when the moment came. And I know that if that happened I would hate myself more than ever. I'm sorry for the awful handwriting and scattered thoughts. I'm trying to write whatever comes to mind. A glimpse into my life, as you might say.

This book is for her, because she deserves more than just some gaddamn letter that my shaky hands could barely finish. Because she believed that we were all more than a few scribbled sentences on the inside cover of a notebook that has already been filled with pain (that's why this page is in the middle, and why this whole book is yours to keep or destroy or write about). I hope this is more than a couple of paragraphs pieced together on mismatched napkins, accidentally written while making a grocery list. You mean so much more to me than some **** book that you will one day write on a searching-for-happy afternoon, and your insanity makes more sense to me than anything else I've ever seen or felt or imagined. You said to leave something great in my absence and that, my friend, is why I am leaving you.

I've always hated my bony fingers
a skeleton
I've been meaning to ask you
if that's why you used to shiver when you held me.
it must've been awful holding something so lifeless
knowing I was little more
than bones.

I don't feel the shivering anymore
and when you
hold me, you
hold me like I'm the one who
needs to be steadied

and I think that's what happens when someone dies.

you will finally grasp that I'm gone
that the skin and bones you used to hold
which distressed your heart
and whittled at your brain like a knife
with aches and tears that
begged for your help
left
for good.

you do all you can to fix this
all in your power to bring me back.
the knife I have made will cut inside and out to
search for anything
anything you could've done to save me

and I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that I have ruined you from the beginning
but all I ever wanted was to see you steady
standing alone
and I know you couldn't do that with
this skin and
these bones
laced between your bony fingers