When I first fell in love with you
I wrote everything down.
Every word you said, everything we did.
Every place you took or touched me.
I knew that when I lost interest in recording
It would be because I was losing interest in you.
But here four years later,
you have me entertained.
And you gave me a puppy for my birthday.
A little mix breed that I named after your sister.
I convinced myself that when the dog ran away
you would be on her heels leaving me.
But that pup has been gone for three years,
and here you are with me.
And you gave me four red rubber bands
from the produce section of your part time job
to the daily wear on my wrist.
I knew that when they snapped
our love would wither with them.
But the last one died two years ago,
and you just brought home new ones.
And I used to write your name
on the rubber sole of my shoes.
I told myself that as it faded
your interest in me would follow suit.
But last year the rain finally got the best of it,
and now we kind of live together.
So I found a kitten in a trashcan
a flea invested bag of bones.
This was the one
I felt certain.
I would love him and try to heal him
but he would die,
and then you'd be gone too.
But the **** cat he got better
he got big, he got strong, and he loves me.
And looking at him today I think maybe I was right.
He is the perfect metaphor for me and you.

When we started there were
Five minute kisses,
Late nights sneaking out,
And texts of "I love you."
There were long looks,
And long trips,
And texts that said,
"I love you."
Now there is
"How is your day?"
"Very busy."
And texts, "I love you."
There are short phone calls.
There are no more long walks.
But there are texts, "I love you."

I see wrong.
I see right.
I saw crying
and I saw fights.
Mom loves money.
Dad loved life.
I see wrong,
and I see right.
Mom raised us
and dad was gone.
I see right,
and I see wrong.
Kids pick sides
as time moves on,
but I see right,
and I see wrong.

We stopped joking about keeping you
When things got really scary.
We were twenty.
We were students.
We were poor.
And we had dreams to travel the world.
In our pretend life we could make it work.
I was prolife as a teenager.
But things weren't that simple after.
I put off taking the test for weeks.
Dreading the inevitable, you.
But when the strip turned pink
I smiled.
Just that once.
Just to myself.
Then the hard mask of terror took over.
The next few weeks were a blur.
We made the right choice.
But that doesn't mean I didn't love you.

His name was really Billy.
I'm not changing that for the story.
His name was Billy Jones,
and we hated him.
He was the fattest kid
in the sixth grade class.
He claimed his cat peed on him
right before he got on the bus,
so that he didn't have time to change.
But he smelled that way all the time.
His Metallica t-shirts were riddled with holes
and they were too large even for him.
Billy did not look like anyone else in the class.
On top of it all he was too shy to defend himself.
His meekness made him embarrassed in place of angry.
And I hated him.
To my core I hated him.
I watched him suffer in front of me.
I saw the way my classmates laughed.
I knew to be with Billy was to be with dirt.
So I hated him.
To hate him was to belong.
I extended no arm of sympathy.
The teacher's poked fun at him as well.
He did not belong with us.
Then one day he was gone.
Moved away.
And the wrinkles he had created
in our conservative, small town
middle school smoothed.
Everyone looked the same again,
and we didn't have to look at
the ugly angles of life anymore.
Some grew up and never had to again.

It's not as special as it sounds.
Although the title is exact.
I met the creator of the universe
In the dusty isle of discount mystery novels.
Had I not immediately known it was God
I would have profiled him a ****** predator.
Late middle aged and unshaven.
You're probably wondering but don't ask me.
I just knew, and you would to.
I asked him if he owned the place.
He said no, that he was the manager
To this tiny, tucked away bookstore.
He appeared to be an unhappy, lonely man.
There was a combination of comfort
And disappointment in this.
"Is there something you want to ask me?"
Of course there was.
"Why do you do this to all of us?"
He examined his fingernails
Pushing back his cuticals.
I could see the yellow of wax in his ears.
"I found myself existing.
Just the same way that you did."
He started with a sigh.
"I didn't understand,
and I'm still not sure I do.
Why do you live the way you do?
I was created and I try to make
the best of it just like you.
You see, I'm still trying to figure it all out.
I fail and I succeed.
I like to think I'm getting better."

I had never visited before.
On the drive over I imagined her name
carved in Helvetica on the stone.
Birth date- death date.
Would her picture be on there?
Would the names of her grandchildren
cover the back?
My eyes strained to keep the well from spilling over.
I found her in the Catholic section.
The rest of her family buried elsewhere.
A small gray stone with nothing,
except her last name on the back.
And a simple explanation
of her existence on the front.
There were no angel statues.
Only one sun faded bouquet of plastic pink flowers.
Nothing else.
Nothing to show that she was loved
and that her life mattered.
Nothing to show how much her being here
had changed everything for me.
July 19, 1948-Sept 4, 2008
That's all.
Her entire life amounted to a two foot
un-mowed concrete block.
I felt her body rotting beneath me.
I sat cross legged, staring at the only evidence
that she was ever real at all.
This is what it had all come down to.
I had never visited before.