pile of petals volume i

strung together from before, from during, and from after

isn’t it poetic? isn’t it pathetic?

-

this is how i exist in the time i’ve been told will heal.
this is how i confront the emptiness of liminality.
this is how I mourn the flame you were, the ashes you became, the phoenix i foolishly thought i could have been.  

-

saw a branch on the interstate 
looked like a wishbone

made mine as i veered into the 21st milepost

-

you don’t get to say goodbye to people you held funerals for without their permission 

-

the inches that are supposed to make me stand so tall,
the aching ache that makes me so small.
i can fit wherever you want me to stay, 
safe or discarded, tucked and folded away.

-

emotional dementia, but only a whisper

-

one day i want to be free
like those who can run out the door without planning their packed bags or full pockets
what has to come, what has to stay.
what will come and what will go?
what will come and what will go?
what will come and what will go?

-

i remember the day it rained on our pancakes

-

dead fawn on the side of the highway 
roadkill of the street i grew up on  

we walk with the space of a universe between us 
we talk in the echoes of the words we’ve already spoken 
begging to make them make sense this time
begging to make anything stick that feels familiar or nostalgic or not terrible 

we parked our cars on opposite sides of the green  
the gray sky above my head and the long grays atop yours

-

want a lot of my yesterday’s back 

-

still loving you 
is just my heart in traffic 
never knowing how or when it first started 
and still not being at the end 

-

something about someone who isn’t afraid of public transportation 

-

i shattered glass on the concrete
dry heaved in the rain 
i blink and suddenly see spots of you 
in every place you’ve ever been

can’t bare to remember, could die before i forget

-

everyone wants to be my coping skill 
enamored by how needy i can be
how i may fill their cup 
until they can’t stand the taste 

i can be your new conditioned taste aversion 
spit me back out

i’ll leave you
as i leave everyone
with nothing but a dry mouth 

-

even now, a chip on my shoulder 
even now, my blind spot 

my dentist is going to hate me for the amount of cavities to be filled
cruel, how many ways there are to measure the absence of another person 

-

beyond pathetic, vaguely poetic

-