Last summer, on my birthday, I received a card in the mail. Every year my grandma sends me some silly birthday card, I'm used to it. Last year, I turned 18. On the inside of the card along with the sentimental gilded text, was an explanation. My grandpa had picked out this card for me 12 years before, and for whatever reason, it never got sent. My grandpa died when I was 8. Now, 10 years later, I have one last card, sent from both grammi and grampi. I forgot to say "I love you," I forgot to say "goodbye." I can never go back.

I love you.

Goodbye.

I wish there had been more, maybe an "it's okay, you forgot." An "of course I heard you, I'm here." An "I love you."

An
"I'll come back and meet my other granddaughter."

A story.

Something.

I have a card, and a transformer stopwatch (long broken), a tiny box (that used to hold a wooden beetle with moving legs, but no longer), and a memory of a smile.

I lost the pocket knife.

I forgot his voice.

I miss the pens in his shirt pocket. I miss playing pickup sticks. I miss him playing the piano, and letting me ruin it, pressing the keys. I miss him reading me stories. Over and over, as many times as I wanted.

I miss the absent look he got when he was thinking about something else entirely.

I miss when he forgot about veterans day.

I remember him, dying, stuck in a bed, drinking water through a sponge (it was one of the most terrifying things I've ever had to watch). He never lost his mind, or his memory, he lost his body first.
The last thing he said to me was "you be a good girl."
The last thing I said was "I will" (and I hid behind my mothers back, while she said "We love you").

Sorry Grandpa,
I'm not perfect.
And that's probably not
what you meant

He knew he would never see me again.
I had no idea. (Why was that the last thing he said?)

He was a composer.
Two weeks before he died (that's also the first time I cried for him), someone arranged to have a symphony play his music for the first time in concert. They drove my grandpa to the concert hall in an ambulance. That's a gift no one will ever live up to. I wish I'd gone.

He was one of the most amazing people I've ever known,
and I didn't even realize it until after he was gone.

I'd give almost anything to have a conversation with you.

Goodbye.

I love you.

Goodbye.

I love you.

Goodbye.

I love you.

I wish you were still here.

Two Christmases ago, my grandma started crying while we were singing silent night, because Chuck wasn't there to sing bass. We were missing only one part, and no one could replace it.

I wonder if there are recordings of him talking, just talking somewhere.
I'd like to hear them.

I wish I could have sung with my grandpa, Christmas carols, anything.

Goodbye.

I love you.

if I could write beautifully
I could weave words into your hair
like flowers
I could make you summer
out of spaces and letters
I could be an alchemist.

it's 1:03
in the morning
and i'm so cold
my skin
looks like lace
i'm frozen
numb at the fingertips,
nails blue.
i'm reduced
to this: splinters
and a shuddering
ribcage

this is a different kind of starving

I might be
    the lines under my eyes
    racing each other down my face
    and dreaming of being beautiful

I might be
    an ant stuck in paint
    suffocated, confused,
    hopelessly devoted,
    but ultimately wrong

I might be
    moths in a stairwell
    predisposed to believe that a flickering
    wall lamp is the one and only sun
    then repeatedly flying into it

The whole point of running in circles is giving up.

a while ago,
I stopped picking up pennies
on the ground
with the thought in mind
that it would be kinder
to leave them
for someone in more need
of luck than me.
and just a day ago,
I saw a penny that I hadn't
picked up.
on the ground,
ten feet from where it had been
a week before;
in the middle of a major walkway,
it sat neglected, dejected,
scratched and worn.
it's the pennies that need pennies.

all i want
really, all i want
is someone to tell me i'm beautiful
who will hold me and
remind me that I matter
who will take me somewhere new
and say "see?"
who will accept me
though i'm not at my best
who will wake me up in the morning
and kiss my forehead
because it's saturday
and i've found
that all i want
really, all i want
is far too much

there are days when time is too much
when mornings are aeons and evenings are millennia
watch fingers mindlessly forage for cigarettes
hands shaking watch them pull up socks
fix hat
push stay hairs out of face
mind runs wild
and hands like spiders
and then it's tomorrow
there are days when time is too much
when mornings are moments and evenings are wisps smoke
passing through consciousness and into the night