It’s 2:39 in the morning and
I’m sitting on my fold-in couch
with my toothbrush hanging from my mouth.
This is not a poem.
This is the realization that hits me
out of nowhere
so suddenly,
so unexpectedly,
in the midst of something so ordinary.
This is not a poem.
This is me, at 2:40 in the morning,
realizing that you were never good enough for me.
That I chose to put myself down, to ignore
my wishes and desires
so as to please you.
That I made up all these excuses for you,
that I came up with all these reasons to justify
why you were manipulating me,
that I kept telling myself you’d eventually
admit to having loved me all along.
This is not a poem.
I do not need a metaphor to tell you
that I realized I do not need you.
That I realized I never really did.
Right now, at 2:43 in the morning
I have never felt more alive
than in this very second
now that I am free of you.
This is not a poem.
This is a goodbye letter to the me that thought she loved you.
This is me, at 2:45 in the morning,
knowing my worth.
I am made of a billion universes
scattered inside my eyes,
I am a billion trembles,
I am nebulous,
and it’s 2:46 in the morning,
I’m sitting on my fold-in couch
with my toothbrush hanging from my mouth.
This is not a poem.
This is the realization that hits me
out of nowhere
so suddenly,
so unexpectedly,
in the midst of something so ordinary:
I am so much better than anything you’ll ever be.

I have lived my life in muted tones,
In dark shadows and shady corners,
But now I walk through shining lights,
Armed with a thick skin and a new mind,
Now I feel and see and live and breathe,
But even when it still hurts and aches and stings,
I know that this light,
This new warm and suffocating light,
Is a thousand miles from that dark.

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