I'm sorry that we all had to stand by and watch
As they packed your mother up into a box and
Laid her to sleepless slumber on the huge cross hill

I'm sorry about the Evil Machines. How they ate away at
Her heart and left her so unrecognizable that her
Face looked more like a window than anything else

I'm sorry that we're always forgetting to ask if you can breathe

Three kids sitting cross legged in a homemade shed
A trifecta, if you may
A band of crickets screaming prayers into the humidity
One recounted stories of robots in the high school hallways
All laughing and golden, whispering empty epitaphs into the abyss
Singing songs of nothing to a comfortable god
One spoke of aspirations shrouded in cigar smoke
A life of more than mother's wishes and monetary muteness
Being caught between stagnant calculations and hammered guitar strings
Lyrics tattooed the back of her teeth, curious wonderer, light wash grief
Questioning the deities found anywhere but her circle of friends
And we must sacrifice ourselves to rock bottom
One drank a singular beer and couldn't see straight
A hole in a head, filling fast with all those secret woodland soliloquies
Like for the first time, she could see
Clumsy ankles treading through the over brush, love or lust
And how should we go on living through these nights fated to end
There was a soundtrack to our revolution,
Haunting hymns over the busted stereo,
Love poems washed away with morning

But the night sounds
Oh, the night sounds
The holy ghosts in moonlight reflecting off the leaves
The sacred rub of skin on skin beneath the moribund trees

Perhaps at some point
She was in love with
Each of us, individually,
Or different parts of us
That she smashed together
To form a glowing deity
In her mother's pottery barn

This being created was
A blistering hybrid -
A lake water guzzling,
Guitar string swallowing,
Paint brush *******,
Hair pulling, ring bearing,
Monster in a pair of old fashioned skis

Eulogy singer
Blood bullets explode in my throat
Blood, ink, rusted piano keys
Church pews and surgical scars
Christmas feels like crying
I hope I don't die in Italy
Drinking ink on the bathroom floor
Everything was, but wasn't
It was white shoes, but off white, really
In love, but not
Warm water in the garage
A champagne bottle and a butcher knife
We drank in the streets, and no one got caught
Blood bullets on Main Street, everyone was drops of old beer
That time of year
Bullet holes in the headboard
Used, abused, we don't get to choose
Christmas felt like joy or melancholy or pine or something

I promised you a wink
We got drunk so we could kiss
Fireworks, smoked out sheds
Tee-*** man fell in love at the Taco Bell
We lived beneath the tree
Twenty years old
It's been three since that night in the basement
Citrus something and secret kissing in the office
My hands rested on your legs, and your sister sat outside
Summer is always showing up again
Oh, I remember the Indie Rokkers (who could forget?)
You've been on my mind since 2013
One day, someday, it's been too long
It all started with that Free Festival Concert

I haven't felt this in a long while
That same old, beautiful teenage rebellion coursing through my twenty year old veins

Remember the grass we'd tread on during days of
Extracurricular activities all hungover and dread locked

Or the Saturday night in late September
When three girls first inched their way toward a mirror
In the thrift store and the coffee shop
Gourds and games and locking ourselves in the car to listen to that rust colored song
Amid the high school hoi Polloi
Three girls, still, getting closer to that mirror

There were books about the body in a Goodwill
About the diseases that afflict our tiny bones
And science hung from a rack while she put on an old mans sweater and fantasized about the death that could have taken place in each stitch

Catholic school boy bonfire
Doing donuts in the field because, well, life is a highway
And can you believe it? She hit her head again
Oh our blonde believer, knocking her brain out of her skull and onto the highway
While our other friends smoked secrets in the woods out past the driveway

When we parted from our dear doe eyed psychopath
And found ourselves a trifecta for the first time in months,
There was only one thing to do -
Admit there were robots among us, chug a beer, and say goodnight

We haven't spoken in over a week,
But really, we haven't spoken since May.
And how many times can I spell out I love you with a fistful of gold dust
Before you believe someone could love you with a fistful of gold dust?

How was that party with the mountain boys?
Did my name fling itself through the windshield
As you pulled in to the driveway and back in time?
Was it all 2012? Ski slopes and corduroy?
The herd of heads you've only ever heard of?
Were you a wild child in the deep woods?

I see champagne bottles scattered under trees,
And guitar strings echoing, resonating, suffocating.
When she pulls away you fall into blue eyes, all wrapped up in books.
Good for you, perhaps the happy couple will one day
Take up residence in Georgia or wherever the freckled girls gather.