A note I will hopefully send in 2 years.

I've found myself and my very own happiness, but fortunately this "family" will never be a part of it. You always did say we put the 'fun' in dysfunctional but I never understood how disappearing once a year on the very day that you released the biggest mistake of your [life could be a functional relationship.
You say that I fill the very hole in your heart but [why are you digging one in mine.
You say that we are just like any other family, but other families hug each other, weird I know. You say that everybody deals with their pain in different ways, but I don't remember any of my friends telling me that their parents would take their paroxysm and give it to them as birthday presents.
I still quiver with fear when I hear the word love because I link it with pain.
"I hurt you because I love you"
"It is only because I love you"
"Love" is not an reassurance to hurt someone.
I have found out that breaking a cup is not an actual reason to hit a kid.
I have found out that telling someone that your parents words are sharper than shards of glass is not a reason to have liquid soap [poured down your throat.
I have found out that calling emergency services is okay when you do not feel cleansed after drinking PalmOlive, they might have mistaken it for cough syrup demanding to purge me of this sickness but needing to be rushed to the hospital, but it's okay because you love me right?
when they asked what had happened and you said I did it to myself and I was astonished but it's okay because you were doing it for me, -right?
I have found that when you leave tragedy from those shards of glass on your legs that your parents will disregard it and mistake it for comedy but I am not a playwright.
You forgot to notify me that the bedtime stories you use to tell me were fantasies of me {dying.
I have learned it is not normal to send your child to a madhouse when you simply do not want them to go on vacation with you.
I have learned that a trip to the sanitarium is the only vacation I'll get  and if you inform your child that they have shattered their family against the very ground that holds them, it will almost always engulf them in their very own straight jacket.
I have finally learned that love does not mean tight knuckles and I have learned that happiness is not painful.

I'm sorry if I resemble a broken home, but contrary to the Mormon mother stickers on my wall, it is not a gathering place and love is not found here.
you'll push me away and hit me if I try to give you hugs or kisses on the cheek but then have the audacity to ask my why I'm not empathetic or why I can't connect with other people that well.
you tell me they'll make fun of me if i wear that, but aren't you the one that's suppose to make me feel better if they do? and if you tell me i look disgusting in this dress one more time i might explode out of it.
you try and tell people that you were there for me when i was little, but where were you through all the cuts and scrapes and broken bones? forget that, where were you when i needed a mom, now I curl my hair a little different than the others and I still don't know how to braid, I don't know how to properly apply my blush or how to match my clothes.
you tell everyone how well you know me, but I don't ever recall over the 16 years of my life you ever sitting down with me and having a conversation, never civilized at least. you've been vicious, you kick people when they're down but for some reason I've always been the target.
{you tell me} that I filled a hole that you had in your heart but why are you {digging} one in mine?
I'll tell you I'm stressed but you'll tell me why your day was worse than mine. you'll tell me that when I fall I have to get up and you're not going to lend me a helping hand -you tell me that you'll give me something to cry about.
I've never had the love that I wish for, I'll see other with moms who will hug them and kiss them and hold them when they're weak. but you always tell me that I am so lucky to have you, that you will make me strong.

Red  
do you remember the way his words were like the plague on your skin, and how you compared yourself to burning wood; crackling and ashing all around you. can you remember the combustion in your eyes that was put out by the sprinklers from your face; he's chasing you around the table with hostility in his fists; there's red on the ground. Ring around the rosy isn't as fun as it used to be.

Orange
do you remember loving the way others laid their hands upon you? but it will never be quite the same as the sweet taste of  his knuckles, kisses- are what he called them. when he finds another has laid his hands on you, he kisses you with great passion and rage. sprinting after you, come out come out wherever you are. tag, you're it.

Yellow
can you remember when you woke up in your closet, hide and seek is so fun with him. there were yellow lilies by my bedside, I just know he loves me. he left me a note, "another round?" I pick the petals off the flower and lay them around me, covered in yellow sugary pollen they whisper to me "he loves you, he loves you not" don't worry, he'll find out soon enough.

Green
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, get down from there they yell. it's going to take a lot to put her back together they say in a clamor. you jump down and stain your white pants from the puddles and the grass waiting at the bottom for you. all the kings horses and the kings men could never make her smile again.

Blue  
rock a bye baby you sing to me, please oh please don't put me to sleep. these black and blue kiss marks are screaming out, others might hear, what should I tell them, should I shout? I pace around the room, he says to you, hush little baby don't you cry, your bough did break and your cradle will fall.


Indigo
there's a time where we try to reclaim our youth because of overwhelming nostalgia, dreaming in children's games and nursery rhymes. things are not always as they seem in the dollhouse, this is a sadness much deeper than any other, if you asked me to name it I would tell a story of a deeper shade of blue, an indigo of sorts, but people are not toys and I will not be your puppet anymore.

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried

are you scared of the dark? when we were younger we spent so much time checking under our beds for monsters, looking in the basement, running to our bed after shutting off the light or hiding under those cotton blankets for false protection. we spent so much time running and checking and looking, and hiding, but from what? as i grew older i started to understand, i checked under my bed because i couldn't bear the fact that the monster was in mine and I was too scared to look in the basement of my subconscious, running from whatever that was in the dark then pulling the cotton over my eyes, the darkness might have been you, I mean sometimes when I would look into your eyes they were the deepest of browns, I could have sworn they were black sometimes, and you would creep around in my basement as I slept, looking for a clue that might give away my fears, but you did a pretty good job figuring it all out on your own. it might have been you, my eyes are the brightest of blues, but when you were done with me, so was my heart. after all you were sleeping in my bed stealing my every breath, but I didn't know that, and
in the hospital bed, you were there, with those black eyes, you like to come and visit sometimes, I don't miss you. we spend so much time trying to figure things out, the unexplainable, but sometimes... it's just better to leave it that way. I'm not scared of the dark anymore.

In a few years I'll think back to that time that you tore me down in the church attic, I'll think back to the day that you took me to a house of brews and took me dancing, I'll think back to when I fell in love on the moon and in the clouds.
You disemboweled me , leaving nothing but the ***** that lets me exist, while you saved every other part of me. You brought sleeping with enemies to life, but didn't they always say to keep your enemies close? I guess you took that literally , I guess you took my metaphor literal when I told you I wanted you to eat my heart out. You were clueless to who the enemy really was. You have no idea of the threats I posses. I warn you every day, and every day you tell me the same thing. You assure me of our future and liberate me from the past. I let people use and abuse me, simply because it does not hurt. I thought you would be one of the many to use and pass me by. I remember when I asked you to hurt me, I begged you to help me feel, I pleaded for you to leave bruises, instead you filled my heart with warmth, something I've never been use to. Affection is not something I've been taught, love is not a word often heard to my ears, when people hug me I shy away because it does not feel right. But you make warmth feel like home, love is not just a vocabulary word with you and vulnerability is something that I am indefinatley okay with if you are by my side. I told you that people that fall in love fast are kind of like the lighting of a match, they fall out of it just as quick, but you said promptly, that's for people who don't know where to put the flame. You look at me as if I put every shade of blue in the sky just for you, and you told me I did, informing me that blue was your favorite color , letting me know that I would never feel the color of the sky again.