The sad ones they
see.

How some things are harder to embrace.

Dear one, you are loved, it will get better and I know it is hard to see how. It is hard to see when the dust settles, and you are surrounded by the ways time stretches and suffocates you.

And it is so easy for you to laugh, and I am so jealous sometimes because of the crippling consuming emptiness and sadness and awareness that you do not have.

Why is it so hard for me to be light?

These clothes don’t matter. This body doesn’t matter. We will be gone and everything you are will be gone and what matters? What matters?

Maybe the tree shouldn’t have been eaten from. Maybe it would have been better not to know. Instead of the gasping,

I am always gasping. And it hurts so much.

It’s not that

I am sad or want to be gone or want to have pain.

But I have looked at a length of a belt, and snapped the black leather between my palms, and thought of the agony of waiting to cease to be and watching those you love cease to be and thought maybe I can’t handle this— all the waiting and watching and maybe in some ways it would be calmer to ebb away now on my own time.

my own choice instead of waiting to see when I couldn’t have this and them any more and being oh so sad it is ending instead of being able to be present instead of just watching it end.

I wish I wasn’t aware sometimes

it would be simpler not to be noticing

the way everyone is going about around me like a life is  a thing that doesn’t end like they are

on the track moving and running and I am hoping and hoping

I keep being frozen and waiting

but I gasp, I gasp noticing how we all keep going,

dear friend,

we keep going.

whispering heart you always

try and fool me like a colorblind pup who chases after the same parts of toys thrown in fields for him,

and can only bring back jagged broken bottles

oh why do you sear my gums with your green glass

why do you insist upon

cutting the flesh until I am only a ragged old thing

and I spin and turn upside down for you

exposing my underside and wanting only some affection somehow

maybe it’s time to stop staring and letting it go

You were it, the treasure that I’ve always searched for, golden beautiful love of mine.

Even if it is one year, maybe two— I can feel wanting your lips more than I’ve wanted any type of honey or mangoes or even water when the air is thick with how much I need. I am suffocated by the extent of my need for you. I can breathe in the ways in which I was clear- ah the clarity! I loved you, dear, I loved you oh. How I did.

hush now, mind and words floating around trying to explain away

the feelings and the way may chest constricts and expands breathing you in, even now.

so much time, and I wait

for your smile and spirit to release me from the way you clutch onto me.

sigh gasp, I know, you don’t want me the way I consume you (oh, how you consume me).

"I like to think of you in that little town," she said. "Happy and frozen in those photos of you and the sea."

if I were just a little bit wiser I would have

been troubled so much sooner by this.

It has been a hellish year and

shouldn’t someone who says they wish you were “we” want to at least

know the truth?

My body is a stranger

It unwillingly lumbars from place to place aching all the time under the strain of having to carry itself from the garden back to the concrete and swelter under the heat of airconditioned vents and the keys chattering away on a keyboard.

Sometimes we shut our eyes and there is the burning when the oxygen hits them and every breath is ours and we fought goddamnit for it and sometimes

the only thing I can say I’ve done is made it until I could crawl into my sliver of a bed and move the dog to the right side and, stretch out my muscles and tendons and all the other things the body is and

try and recognize my life as mine and not some distant life that I keep watching happen to some distant girl, like a movie that I have muted on in the background while I 

iron my clothes and yours too, and make food for the men in our house (because that is what the women do)

and clean the food scrapes and scraps off of the table and sweep them onto the floor until the boys then step on them, barefoot, crumbs sticking to their toes and

trying to sleep after a long, long day of apologizing

(because that is what the women do).

 am never raunchy I always

say the polite thing and make sure the polite feelings

flicker across my face

fuck

I am a deceiver

I plan it I plan

the way you will react to my subtleties

I plan the way you will see me flinch or see the vacant expressions cross my face I plan

the tiredness and the revolving door slamming in your face

and the way I shudder away from you or have distance and

I know if you are smart you will see what I’ve laid out for you

When really I am just blank and 

the politeness in every fucking day makes me want to 

rip off the heads of magazine people and

shove their smiles into bottles of empty cola and

take another shot of whiskey so you can feel like you can finally decode what isn’t there.

I’m sorry it isn’t and I’d

try a little harder if I could.

From my insides wretched and writhing, I have been told.

Wretched, writhing creatures and

when I imagine this I think of exploding faiths and dogmas, the way you took my heart and scrambled it, sizzling my mind and interweaving truth and crunchy apples wrought with worms eating the flesh inside and out;

and brie (soggy on the cracker) fatty and savory, melting on the sides of my tongue. Appetite (yes), but

Sopping wet with entrails and telling me that it was caviar (but from the insides again)

How do you disentangle your own morality from the dead and expired bodies lying on the ground, rotting and seeping back into the earth?

In the pictures painted on doors and houses and on the sides of the walls, the lambs were always wholesome and cradled and protected.

This was never the whole truth, was it? How could it have been when the things we take we’ve deemed more precious broken into parts and pieces than as a whole?

How could you not mention the pieces of chipped white paint underneath the nails of those clawing at the images on church doors?

These pieces are needed to construct an entire portrait, yet they are splintered in the fingertips of girls with long hair that hasn’t yet had time to be twisted into braids.

Every bit of me tries to stay in the present even though

I cannot help but race around the time in my head, the pounding maniacal self inside this skull that refuses to be content with the things a life are made of;

and I know of heroin that you are engulfed by pleasure waves streaming through your veins and that is why white women in their mid-thirties berated us to choose wisely and

what was I but someone who could choose.

Gratefulness is always expected of those allowed to be. My issues with God always came down to this, the measure of where my gratefulness should be and where it was and is.

I am only afraid because I never let myself slow down and it is tiring, and now I take sleeping pills to sleep and then I can never quite manage to be awake.

The way you move against me even when I’m not there and you are lost

no, not lost, just

a little unwilling to be found,

shudder, sigh and a lisping fan sputters the honesty we couldn’t

my hand feels for how soft you are, yearns for it, my ribcage melts under the pressure of everything you keep demanding from me

taking more, taking more

and sometimes the games end in sweaty limbs huddled next to each other, hoping the fire in the room won’t singe the eyelashes from our bodies.

When it is cold out or sometimes in the middle of a crowded room I feel

a wave of something, loneliness maybe or just a vulnerability to the universe (it goes on you know);

and I hear of your sadnesses, but I am so distracted because see! there,

is nothing,

more lovely,

than this baby in my arms, soft and crinkly and plump and plum.

Warm little fingers all slapping away anything and no wrinkles because everything is still just quiet inside and maybe

that is why we have no memories when we are so so young to give us time

to rest and re-cooperate and grow because if we had to remember even then any shouts or even the sob of a clock ticking away we wouldn't be able to relax our lips and tiny little eyelids because we knew the world was both waiting and fading.

So if the small whisper in the back of my mind,
the one I ignore and cover in notes of jazz and maybe the acoustics of guitars that I will never know how to play
the small trinket,
the little locket with a hidden picture buried at the bottom of the jewelry box--

if the unrelenting suspicion is true. If we maybe live this, and then there is nothing to greet us on the other side,

does my whole being collapse.

I want to lie down in the grass, and strike up a conversation with the most unlikely of people, because oh,
how brilliantly unlikely,
to have met you at this time, now.

I don't know what the fight was about, or why,
you cannot open your eye in the morning without taking your fingers and prying it open.

I don't know why you are fifteen, and seeking some kind of love in the arms of a boy-man who does not know what it could mean for your tiny body and mind to have a baby boy the same age as your little brother.

You and your glasses and plaid shirt, a watch from Walmart and a cigarette between your teeth, you are
fascinating to me.

So the photograph trapped and dusty and whining like a teapot, the steam burning my forearm.
I am you and you are me, and this is beautiful and painful and
all I know is that if there is something more and if there is nothing more;

You and we and us are amazing and valuable and precious and thank you so much for letting me have the privilege of meeting you. And I am so sorry for any pain and lack of love this world has given you.

I am sorry. Forgive me and us.

I am sad.

There is truth and it is on our side.

Darkness loses in the end.

Death loses in the end.

This is the thing I believe, the thing I keep tucked in my heart hidden in a small locked box.

Oh, I know this thing. I breathe.

Oh, I know this must be true. I breathe.

It is hard, it is hard, but I love mine so. Let them be forever.

Then there are the whispers, the ones who hate me.

"Please let this be true?" I question. I wonder. I hope. I think and then hate thinking, and force it to get consumed by the truth I know because

If it is not,

I cannot bare watching. I cannot be witness to the end of you or the end of me.

My sister, you are loved.
I will remember playing with imaginary bridges, and the bridge from me to you is real and always.

Whoever you are to me, you are more precious than the rest of this world.

The swings,
the way you let me read the things I felt to you-- confused. Confused, but trying to move your hand on my hand. Trying to make me feel better and questioning what it was that made me breathe so hard, and made tears come to my eyes when you could see in front of you without being blinded by the sorrow of everything before and after you.

I was so happy, you were happy. I had joy for you, because I knew that you didn't know the truth of what I knew. The very short time we have, the very cruel and the very beautiful.

You love the sun on your body (and I love it on mine).

You inhale with everything and you don't take it all in. I am jealous of your light heart.

The truth is on our side, love. We are invincible today. You will get it all, and I would give it all to you. I will fight for the truth to be real to me.

Light wins in the end.

Life wins in the end.

Leaves you filled to the brim
and I know
that there are so many challenges and barriers and ways you don't feel enveloped by
the delightful.

The slight touch of a warm hand on your shoulder, can reduce you to someone who remembers they were hurt or are hurt by
all of the veins of kids on street corners that have track marks
and that girl with the jutting chin who swears this is the life she wanted but

sleeps on a mattress in a whorehouse. All she wanted was to play music.

I see you. People want to know that there is hope.
We want to know that there is hope.

This cannot be it and that in the very depths
I know you want more.

Flex, and bend with your arm reaching backwards and stretch from the fingertips of your wingspan,
through and over to where your feet blend into the speckled earth;

Look at me,
You think I don't see you growing wings?

You think I don't know how it hurts to have feathers carve a notch in your shoulderblades and to have to decide
whether it is okay to enjoy hot tea and flavored water,
and you think
I can't see you struggling
to see if it okay to leap off of a cliff and if you can catch yourself and ride with the wind and let yourself
be someone that just might know
how to wield your own wings?

Swallow and your mouth is parched, strands of light coming and flowing from your body,
and all the people,
do the same thing. Do they not know that
this is an emergency?

How do we not notice that we're not moving any longer?
Champagne and strawberries in some rooms there are small bubbles fizzing over and the tart tangy taste of ferment, and hearts that are pretending that "Yes. After-all, this must be it."

I remember you,
and it is terrifying to recognize so many people. I take what I see from you, and I wait for you to call me out as an imposter.

But I am old. I have been here for some time, and I remember the allies and enemies that are the drifting and intoxicated with the idea that options and choice are not finite.

We played word games in a small house in France, and your eyes were far away as you told me about your daughter who died in Africa of dehyrdation. We knelt before the same God in different ways on the dusty ground, in the open, and we were trampled by chickens and vendors selling another bite to eat to another hungry face,

and I gave you the equivalent of a moment of my life and you gave me a mango.

You invited me into your home, and you slaughtered the only animal you had left. You held me naked and helped me into the shower to bathe when I could not move my ankle, my spirit, my legs.

You took me dancing in a country where I could not speak the language. You looked at me while your little girl looked at you, and your face remained impassive as you had bandages wrapped and rewrapped over your burns.

You told me you didn't like to listen to music while walking because you would miss the sounds of the street.

You asked me if you could dance for me in a smokey room. You told me to pray with you, and when you prayed I listened and so did the Lord.

You told me you drove fast but you did not know why. You told me that serving was selfish because of how we feel when we do it.

You held me crying because of how overwhelmed you were with pain, and I was too, and I knew then I would love you forever.

You had children who could have been overcome with disease, but you stayed faithful and you stayed home and you did not leave.

Of course I recognize you. How could I forget?

Iced coffee and windows with paintings on them of flowers that aren't really flowers
Give me enough to give you.

I always pray this.

I make things. I look at things that are lovely, and take photos of them.
I have a gift I abuse and neglect and only use it when my heart has too much in it.

I buy groceries from fancy stores, and pretend I deserve to eat fancy cheeses and bake fish with avocado or kale.

I go for walks, and eat too much chocolate, and have developed a taste for craft beer. I'm making up my life as I go along but I am supported and I am loved and I

didn't do anything in particular to earn this.

I should have plenty and I do have plenty.

But, can't stop with the thinking and my mind doesn't let me have my basic needs like you don't have yours. You don't eat.

I eat angel food cake and cream and strawberries all cut up and spreading juice.

I don't sleep.

Sometimes, I see glimpses of maybe.

This maybe is a good thing. Maybe, I can make a difference. Maybe, I can make this person feel loved or safe and not feel like they've fallen through the cracks.

I am very aware of the fact that me saying "I should also be starving" and giving a patient my meal is not the most hands-off approach. But, I am also very aware there are times I should have been starving, and that Bible verses go through my head and all I can feel is shame and humility.

People stick with me I suppose. I think this a thing, I will always have. Maybe.

How did you process this? She asked me.

And I told her I have volcanoes in my heart and most of the time they are manageable, but sometimes they are not.

Maybe I have a soft spot for men who are broken, or maybe just people that are broken. That respect is a thing that everyone deserves, and that me granting that respect does not mean I have done anything particularly great. It just means that I did the basic thing, and it breaks my heart. I have a hard time with patients that have been disrespected and it so hurts my heart for them.

Your teeth gently nibble at my thigh and the tender soft skin behind my ear and you
trace down my neck with your nectarine lips;

When I inhale you, you are cool and mysterious like the mornings the sun struggles to rise and you
committed to walking in the park with the vague fear that someone is watching you as your mismatched socks become wet with the dew of the grass. Exhale.

Your eyes weed through my words and expose me. But my secrets are no secret, and my future is only made of dried bones and the repeat button permanently pushed on track 8 of a CD you gave me before.

Yours is colorful and exciting, and you have things you want. You know how to want.

You have friends and people, houses and families, animals and creatures and mountain sunsets in your future. You have laughter and words and art. Paint and learning and stimulation and 70 more years. You have stamps to get in your passport, songs to sing in the shower (hot? cold?)

I am in the kitchen, listening to music I shouldn't be. I know that changing the song may literally save my life, but I do nothing.

It's not fair to let someone so alive love someone like me. Some people don't get to want things, and it's not just or right but, "Hey that's life!" croons the man with the leather coat and droopy shoulders, smelling like cigar smoke and whiskey, holding a sign (Anything Helps) on the street corner. Or was that the police man in the middle of the park, on the walk we took trying to figure out if holding hands still counts as too much love? Who knows?

Nothing is wrong.

It isn't. I'm fine. I eat food and I go to work and I come home and I get up and I eat food and I go to work and I come home and I get up and I eat food and I go to work and I come home and I get up and I eat food and I go.

I feel like whatever I'm making is a stall.

It is just not anything real.

I am floating and breathless, and anything but here. I am one step in, and one step out.

I am sitting in this apartment, and nothing feels real.

I want a day. One day. Where everything is vibrant and actually happening.

I would trade 60 years for this day. Ice cream, and the mountains, and
maybe a conversation with all of the people I love. Maybe 5 minutes. Maybe 15.

I would get up. Go for a bike ride. Read my favorite passages from my favorite books. Talk to my mom, talk to my dad. My grandma.

I would have blueberry pancakes. I would make my mom's recipe. I would play ball with the dog.

Why do I feel like I know a secret that no one else does? Why do I already feel like I am dust?

Why have I decided that whatever way the future goes, I cannot feel excited for it? Why do I feel like I'm going through the motions of what it means to be someone who is living?

I feel like I'm following a script, numbly smiling here or nodding there and why don't the things that made me happy only make me sad because here we are all I want to do is sleep.