Spreading ***** on toast in the morning,
and too cold coffee in a cracked cup.
I brush my hair back and my eyes go with it,
leaving empty sockets where my soul used to be.
The morning newspaper speaks to me,
Every word is your obituary.
It turns to dark yellow dust in my hands.
Our apartment is my asylum.
It's a house of mirrors, sewn from your old skin.
When I touch the walls, they sting like stovetops.
Your burnt remains season my dinner;
Iced tea sweetened with your ashes.
I hear a hole in my stomach whispering,
I tried to swallow grief but instead it swallowed me.

for all those that had and have to.

Because my father drank and forgot to shop.
Because sometimes barren shelves can make
Me say “yum” to trouble. Bring it on. Just watch.
See if I don’t form a meal out of a fifteen minute browse.
See if I don’t howl “jackpot!” when I arrive back home.
See if I don’t have the family opening bags and sneaking bites
And turning stovetops and laying plates and stocking fridges and
Filling glasses and grabbing utensils and smelling the score and finding
Themselves laughing as their full bellies take form.

Because after awhile I enjoyed it. I found thrill
With resistance and risk and crime and trouble. A way
To spite to the abandoners. The ones that made me sniffle
At night and feel weak and worthless. Unloved.
No more!
When I walk into a store and save $20 I am sure that when
My dad relapses I will have a backup plan beyond the grandparents
That turn pale and tired each time they get one of those calls.
No more!
They’re old enough and so am I; and plus, there will be moments when
Those calls will come after 911 and they’ll have to speed over to the house.

Because I got away with it.

Because the television was on.

Because free is non-existent.

From card games and Legos,
towns of plastic people,
an architect of those tiny bricks.

From apple trees
and “sword”-fights with snapped twigs
on a summer breeze.

From road trips,
endless hours in that suburban,
endlessly asking, “Are we there yet?!”.

From curious clumsiness,
burnt hands on stovetops,
and scraped knees on pavement.

From the frozen creek,
gliding—no—flying across the surface,
on well-worn blades.

From Michigan trails,
glittering lakes and skipping stones,
hot against my palms from the sun-scorched sand.

From grassy, unkempt fields
behind an unfamiliar school,
painted with white lines and home to an ambitious team.

From “the sticks”,
or the country, as it’s better known,
bittersweet memories follow so that wherever I may go,
forever this was home.