Words work like memories
They serve there purpose
When you want them to,
And i know from this hard tile floor
That i can get back up again
But i know i’ll end up here in the morning.
I don’t know how to give you away,
And I don’t know how to hold you away
But just close enough.
Looking at my eyes in the mirror
Without my mother holding me
Just makes me
Look down at my old wooden slat floor
Remembering when she did hold me.
Worried that that was the only time I knew safety
Safely embracing me away from me
With a razor blade and my brother’s eulogy
I could hear my fathers cackle
As he drove away.
And the eyes of my brother
Holding his last chance in dead hope
Of finding someone to play catch with
Of finding someone to tell him a story
Of finding someone to play-fight with…
I can still hear my mother clutching me and weeping to whomever, “why?”
I can still hear the car running in the garage with my brother collapsed over the steering wheel.
I can still hear the priest giving his last words to the heavens over my body…
