The world is so peaceful these days,
Maybe it's just me,
Maybe because I'm not wandering aimlessly through downtown San Diego,
I don't really know.
This town is so small.
I don't dislike it,
But I'm far from liking it enough to stay.
I know this complacency stems from you.
I will uproot this bud and transplant it 2572 miles South-West.
Maybe then I won't feel like I'm going to start to love this small town, too, soon.

You stupid sonofabitch.
I hope you burn less than you did when you were here,
and that maybe you finally caught up with the monster you were chasing.
We still drink to you
on days like this,
Glasses raised to the day you showed up,
Broken bottle on the back porch to forget the day you left.
Oh, and pay your mother a visit sometime, she misses you so.
She's been saving lives in your name for years now,
but the kids are still dropping like flies.
Tell her it's okay,
that she's done her part.

I guess I just miss you.
That heart of gold is still the talk of the town, but I remember the black fingers wrapped around it much better,
And I want you to know that I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I didn't save you.
So tonight I'll drink
Not to the ashes on the mantel or the flowers on the grave.
But to you.
Happy birthday, Matt.
Wherever you are.

.
when I was little,
  i found that in a in a certain frame or light,
snow can look an awful lot like shooting stars.
so maybe the cold months aren't so bad,
and I hope you'll stay with me through the winter.
it's likely you'll seek solace in the storm outside,
in order to escape how cold i've grown to be.
it's not my fault.

some times
  i will want to drive in the middle of the night and watch the snowflakes rush at me
like so many misled embers and try to remember
  to save as many kisses for when it's warmer.
disregarding the fact
that shooting stars
are not stars,
that if I turned my headlights off i wouldn't feel guilty,
that you do not
love me.

i want you strapped in beside me
so I can remember to keep my eyes on the road,
and you can count every frozen anomaly for me
as they melt on the windshield, remind me later,
and i will quietly wish for each of them to have the same mass as a car
  or that we're traveling through space like they do in the movies.
it depends on the day.
it's not my fault.

but please don't speak.
don't speak of God or the infinite
or ponder if they are one and the same,
or say something clever about the snow, how all these kisses are wasted on glass,
don't think of how terribly
romantic
it would be
if our law of lips
and tongues caused us to crash.
don't try and get to know me better when it's too cold to get out of bed.
It's not your fault that i don't want to let you in.
because
i bargained for a savior when we first traded smiles
and what i saw scared me half to death.

A letter to The Child Whose Life I Shaped

I pulled that trigger.
I loaded the bullet that changed your life.
Did I think?
No.
I was purely trying to save my own life.
No.
I don’t know where your doll is.
No.
I can’t help your dad.
No.
I can’t get you out of that dark room.
I am so sorry.
I mean,
sorry won’t bring back your doll.
Sorry won’t take that missile off course.
Sorry won’t make the men stop “visiting.”
Sorry won’t do a **** thing,
I can never take back my actions.
I know that I broke you.
I flipped your life upside down and turned it inside out.
I don’t know your name.
I don’t know your favorite color.
If I could go back,
and get to know you,
your favorite food and how old you are,
maybe I would have laid my life down for you.
It is too late to do that.
Too late to save your parents.
And your doll.
And your childhood purity.
No.
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know that I was shaping your life.
No.
I just didn’t want to know.
Didn’t want to think about it.

Sincerely,
The Man Who Drastically Changed Your life