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When you moved half way around the world

I drew a red line on all the maps and globes in my house

to make sure our coasts would be connected. I thought about

writing you melodramatic letters about how I’d swim

across oceans for you. Unfortunately, you know me too well.

We are all old fashioned board games and bad sitcoms,

I’m lazy and you were never one for romantics. Plus,

the Pacific is cold this time of year 

and I’m trying to stop lying so much. 

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I watched you set fire to every house

you’d ever had a first in-

first kiss

first handhold

first fist fight

first apology

until every lover tasted like ashes

there were never enough memories to burn.

as a self proclaimed arsonist

you never go anywhere without a lighter

or a pocket full of matches.

i am seven stories up

without a fire escape

i am swallowing gasoline

 ankle deep in the thought of you.

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We sat on your back porch

smoking cigarettes

as i watched you swallow your diagnosis

a silver bullet

you were trying so hard not to choke on-

cancer.

a skipping stone

lay cold and heavy

flat on the tip of your tongue

one word to define

how your blood had decided to betray you.

a broken dialect of apologies

you just couldn’t get a grasp of

your veins suddenly speaking

a foreign language. 

can you really be colonized from the inside out?

a slow decimation of self.

a brutal countdown 

of every kiss and every walk by the ocean

that will never end in fireworks.

i watched your wedding band tighten

like the noose of your diagnosis

as you told me that your husband never touches you anymore

as if the leukemia could somehow leak through your palms

and swallow him whole.

your son hadn’t stopped by the house in days

proof that men are just boys

afraid of the monsters under the bed

and women are too used to being chased

to ever really stop running anymore

it caught me.

i’m afraid to get out of bed 

you whisper with eyes like surgical steel.

you tuck your hair delicately behind your ear

it’s been coming out by the handful

your body’s witch hunt

and i don’t know how to tell it there is no black magic here.

that you are the closest i’ve ever been to god.

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In spring, your hands smell like cigarettes

and pressed lavender, even though you don’t smoke

and this is when you’re most restless. 

We are the weights on a grandfather clock

the wait for weather worth waking up for.

We are best when we are alone

sitting in the belly of your family’s biggest armchair

drinking cheap beer and reading the newspaper.

We forgot how to speak months ago

ever since you told me how your mother

loved claw foot bathtubs and the deep end of swimming pools

and spoke like Ophelia.

Ever since we talked about

your father’s occupation as a stay at home butcher-

how the blood spilled accross the old wooden porch

and leaked through the cracks, how it reminded you

of your christening. We forgot how to speak but

i still remember how your accent reeks of your mother’s forgetfulness

and your father’s knuckle crack beatings. 

No wonder you only ever spoke in bruises, your x ray

dialogue projecting feelings i was too young to name.

I was never good at picking up languages 

or swallowing emotions

so now it’s always silent here. 

There is no making up for the past 

when we’ve already read all the history books

and i’m running out of constellations 

to keep you occupied.

As your fingers lisp encyclopedia promises

into my scalp

I wonder how many bones are buried in this

backyard

how many times you felt yourself choking on

the leftover’s of winter

before you finally pointed your mother to the ocean

before you were finally left alone. 

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not being able to talk about it. no one wants to hear it when you’re in the wrong to begin with. 

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paul: ” dude, don’t you have poetry you need to write and memorize by like…next week?”

me: “yeah but…there’s so much netflix to watch and frisbee to play…”

paul: “i hope you fail epically and everyone laughs at you”

maybe if i procrastinated less and was full of creative energy more then my friends wouldn’t wish public humiliation on me. regardless, tonight is all about cuddling and bad movies and naked juice and vegan banana bread. fuck getting things done, i’m tired. 

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repeat: i love my body and trust its wisdom

eat all sorts of unhealthy food

drink copious amounts of tea

try to write poems instead of stressing out over all the bad things that could be going on with my body

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