I have two hands

One for this pen

and one for

my coffee cup?

Shampoo wends from my hair
riding rivulets down my face
and stinging my eyes.
The humid air is awash with
the smell of
coconut...
which I do not like.
But then again,
it’s not my shampoo.
When I moved back in with my parents and my
younger brother (aged 30)
I found the shower we once shared awash in
bottles.
His wife (forever 24) was one of those women who had
a bottle for everything.
Dry hair, frizzy hair, oily hair, big hair.
No hair.
A corpse doesn’t need conditioner and
After she took her life
she left her shampoo and now two years later
after moving back in with my parents
I wonder whether my brother ever moved on.
Does he shower with her ghost?
I do, when I use her shampoo
and it runs down my face and stings my eyes and smells like coconut.
Instead of talking to him I slowly attempt
to use up her memory,
so that he and I are no longer awash in it
whenever we shower
and we can move forward.
But then,
inevitably,
as the shampoo runs thin
and my eyes are rinsed clean
I wonder:
If he followed her into the dark,
how long would I keep his bottles
as daily I tried to clean myself
while simultaneously
awash in their ghosts?

(insights by 15 year-olds on the known universe)
1. ovens are just spicy refrigerators
2. Costco stores are Karen energy
3. tumblr is just depressed kid's Instagram
4. muffins are just tiny cakes
5. soda is just spicy crunchy juice water
6. caffeine is a psychoactive drug
7. oatmeal cookie batter is crunchy slime
8. arson is just community service
9. tik tok is for unintelligent people
10. ugandan yobungus

I can't get dressed and
I don't wanna run
Or do the things that
Get me to the Human gold standard.
I just want someone
To pluck me off of the floor,
Towel and all,
And dance with me.

If all good things must come to an end
Then the nightmare of losing you is forever

the steam of the shower holds your face
like a pillow.

pushing out the smog, clutter in your head
billowing around you and thawing out
the raw thoughts that you try to freeze over.

the endless patter of hot rain that
cleanses, but also
hurts
in that it's one of the only
honest sounds you'll ever hear
(outside of love.)

the moment you step out into the humid, mediated
atmosphere of a cooling room
the water dripping off your arms,
your hair,
your face,
making you anew.

but as everyone does, you wipe the mirror clear
to see your face, and know that despite life,
it's still you.

it changes you, yet proves your you-ness more than anything else.

Don't be afraid to bloom.
Don't be afraid to be a late bloomer.
Don't be afraid to be a late, late bloomer.
Don't be afraid to be the last,
Late bloomer.
All there is to know,
Is that you will bloom,
And there is nothing to fear.

Ever think that the world
Does nothing but tear us up
And beat us down
Because it knows that it is just
A ball of dirt
And we are made of stars?

As this world degrades,
And we've had enough of the old ways.

I can only wonder what becomes,
After this new birth,
Decays.

I know this world's rules,
And those before,

And I may know of what comes next,

But I will not know what rules,
As they call the next of next,

The fool.