freak of nature
"selfish" screaming in my ears
I digress violently now
Whitman bleeding out of
my ears
I cannot bow
seventeen and furious
I am the poet of the
human skin; of violins
and softly fingered clarinets
singing of the dirt under
my fingernails
self-loathing--the evil twin
of guilt--is blinding
I cannot read graphing
calculators or the
future
but both seem empty
like the box under my bed
that used to hold pieces of my
soul (or I thought it did)
now I am scattered
I would like to
hold onto your hand
(I will be less abrasive this way)
instead of purging myself
of every doubt that
has rudely accosted me
in the marrow of
my simple human
structure

one, he has rosy red cheeks and doesn't
speak yet, he is too shy but his mother loves
him and his father already has dreams of a
baseball player in mind
three, his soft brown curls are becoming uncontrollable
and his aunts coddle him and sing praises about
his long eyelashes and he speaks with a stutter that his
mom thinks is adorable
five, he has a big birthday celebration and his father
buys him a puppy and the neighbors come over and all
of a sudden he is best friends with a boy named andy
who likes to play with red toy trucks and loves to watch sports
seven, his two front teeth have fallen out and he thinks
he looks awfully strange and his older sister makes fun
of him for it but it's okay because andy has a little
sister, she is six, and she thinks he looks perfect
ten, he is going to middle school and his father is already
practicing with him because he wants to join the baseball
team (he doesn't, not really, but his father wants him to so
he does it)
twelve, andy is the most popular boy at school and he still
hasn't made the baseball team and everyone makes
fun of him for it, but it's okay because andy's little sister
isn't looking so little anymore and she says he's better than
any boy at that school
14, high school has just started and he still has that slight
lisp from when he was younger but that's fine, he doesn't
talk to any one that much except her, hannah, who isn't just
andy's little sister to him anymore
15, he's in love with hannah and he doesn't think there's
anything more beautiful than her ballet routines and the
way she shakes her hips ever so slightly and everything in his
life is a mess because he's failing science and his older sister
comes home drunk every night and his father has started coming
to his room at night and he doesn't know what to do about
it but it's okay because he has her to make everything
better, his miracle was her
16, he finds out that she doesn't think she's as perfect as
he does and she complains about how ugly she is
and no amount of light kisses to her cheek make up for it
16, he sees the scars on her thighs one day and he asks
her what it means because he refuses to believe she would
do this and he beats up andy because he knew the entire
time and didn't care
16, he finally tells his mother about his father coming to
his room at night and she cries for her husband and her son,
for both seem dead now
16, hannah goes to therapy and she's finally getting better,
he thinks she's finally getting better
16, she's not
16, he attends his first funeral two months later, the girl he loves
being buried six feet underground and her brother isn't there,
he's at a party getting drunk and trying to forget her but he won't
16, he thinks about following in her footsteps
16, he tries
16, he can't
17, he does. he finds the rope his father used
when they would go climbing together and he wrapped
it around his neck and lit himself on fire, but no matter
how many times he screamed, it didn't matter because his mother
was in connecticut, knitting with her friends, and andy was
smoking and his older sister was at college and in the
end no one cared for the boy interrupted for he
was walking on an unfinished bridge his entire life and he was
bound to end up six feet under eventually,
all the good things in life were
(h.l.)

Some days, when the skies turn into dark, steely greys, and the rain pours down like the Gods are weeping, I make an effort to pull out the dusty box in the back of my closet. Within it, are memories that are better off forgotten. Everyone who has ever been a part of them, think that these ancient artifacts have been long destroyed, reduced to rubble, burned in fires too bright and strong to survive. However, these items, these photos, these ancient pieces from another era, another time, another life, are reminders of just how far I’ve come. I can pull out a hoodie, deep red, the colour of my blood on my sheets after you left and wrap myself in it to find comfort from the storm raging outside my window. You see, these memories are some things that may be better off erased and destroyed, but every once in a while, when the fragility of life is made apparent, you need to be able to pull out a dusty box, filled with belongings of your seventeen year old self, young and in love, fearlessly taking on and navigating the bumpy roads, of holding two lives in your hands, and working tirelessly to blend them together. You’ll fall in love again, maybe you already have, but you will never fall in love for the very first time again, and it’s important to physically be able to hold that too hot summer in your hands; where the weather only allowed you to sit by the water with the air conditioning on full blast, playing songs on a hand burned CD, talking about the future like you had a clue of what it would bring. It’s important to remember what being naïve and infinite was like. It’s important to be able to remember him. It’s important to let yourself remember him.