I''ll try not to obsess over it
I promised not to get mad
I'm not.
It might echo in my mind throughout the day
Tomorrow and the next day
But oh well.
Don't worry babe.

I'm good at hiding things that sting you know..

I want to celebrate you

All through life,
I forgot the day until
I'm reminded by others
but now that you're gone
I remember the day each year
without any help
the day feels so empty
so meaningful yet
meaningless
I want to surprise you with
something special
some bright flowers
or a pretty piece of jewelery
to visit you, or at least
give you a call
and wish you a happy birthday
to hear your voice, and give you a hug
to tell you how wonderful you are
and just how great of a mother you are
to go back to all those years
that I forgot and let the day pass
without meaning
and to make sure that you knew
just how much I appreciate you

But now to go to your place of rest
to see your name written there
the words we picked
that doesn't even begin to describe
to sit on the dirt and weep
bring some flowers that you'll
never see or smell,
that someone will clean
up in a week or two
brings me to the thought
that, that might just bring some peace
some closure
some way to show you how much I care
but I can't even do that,
being miles and miles away
though even if I was closer
would I?

I can be close to you
as close as I can get now
anywhere I am
with but a thought

Happy Birthday Mother

I am the shadow on the moon at night. I am the lonely wolf howling, that makes your skin crawl and your mouth go dry. I am the hooting owl, I am the black cat. I am the fog, rolling in from the river, that covers your path. I am the wind that whistles around your window pane. I am the tap, tap, tapping that drives your mind insane. I am the monster in your closet, I am the darkness in the corner. I am the witches cackle, I am the soulful mourner, weeping in the night. I am the hair on your neck when a ghost walks by. I am the scarecrow  in the field, among the corn rolls neatly tilled. I am the spider that crawls over your hand. I am the silence that rolls over the land. I am the breath you hold, when you look under your bed. I am the blanket you pull over your head. I am the fears, never said, when you crawl in your bed. I am the dead, laying in their graves, with something left to say. I am your imagination, and I've come to carry you away.

i don’t know if you were in second
or third grade. or what your favorite color was.
i’m not sure if you liked playing dress up or soccer
or if you were an only child or the baby of six.
i don’t who you had a crush on and i’m not even sure of your gender
but what i do know, is that today you were scared because you saw white
and then heard the noise of the explosion, and the screams of the injured
but i’m not sure if had learned yet in school that light travels faster than sound.
i don’t know why you were watching the marathon, but i know that you were excited
and impressed
that all these people were running for twenty-six miles, which happens
to be the distance from your house to your
grandma’s.
i don’t know if you died squeezing tightly to your mother’s hand or
if your last breath was taken alone, while hundreds ran in a flurry around you.
i do know that when you fell to the ground, no longer breathing,
you tripped a wire that pulled out
your father’s heart and sanity.
i know that you hadn’t yet felt someone
trace their lips up the divot of your spine
and i know that you will never get to sneak out of the house at
three am to get drunk in a park.
you will never see the next president or even what your best friend will wear
on his wedding day.
and i am sorry.
i am sorry that someone was sick enough to put
an explosive in the trashcan and let it detonate
i’m sorry that your death was the product of human selfishness and greed.
i am sorry that today you had to feel a warm liquid leak from your body
and that you lost so much of it you
couldn’t bear to keep your eyes open.
i’m sorry that you were eight years old when you died,
and that you barely got a taste of the world before it was snatched out from under you.

Thinking hard about you
I got on the bus
and paid 30 cents car fare
and asked the driver for two transfers
before discovering
that I was
alone.

When I was eight years old,
I overlooked a moment of compassion
And challenged the will of a fellow third grader
Compelled by my ignorance
She gave the most astute summary of my life ever uttered.

When I was eight years old,
A frizzy haired girl asked me an impudent question
A question of infinite importance:
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep at night, since you know yourself?

When I was eight years old, my arrogant mind brimmed with resentment
Reaffirming that I,
I, apart from my arrogance,
Was the best person I knew.

I was eight years old, and a prophet had spoken.

Eight years later,
I long to be swallowed by the sheets
Eyes stare mockingly at the dormant ceiling
Clinging to the handrails
As my train of thought
Careens off the tracks
Exploding in a cloud of terror and regret

Eight years later,
I long for the simple arrogance of my eight year old mind
I long to close my eyes
And remember nothing

Because today,
Today I am sixteen
And tomorrow I will be twenty-four
And the next day I shall be eighty

When I'm eighty,
I'll stare at the bleached walls
Succumbing to the force of the past
As it consumes the present.

When I turn eighty-eight,
I'll look to the end of my starched bed
And He shall smile
Saying, "Well done!"

I hope I lie, when I'm eighty-eight,
Because If I am honest
If I tell the truth
I do not know who he is
And I never have
I will be cast away
because, eighty years before,

When I was eight years old,
I was arrogant
But still innocent
eighty years from death
and eighty years from shame
I could have heeded those words
The words of the frizzy haired girl

When I was eight years old,
I could have decided
I could have had him sing me to sleep
I could have died entirely unlike myself.

Now that I'm sixteen,
I still do nothing.

You said the anger would come back
just as the love did.

I have a black look I do not
like. It is a mask I try on.
I migrate toward it and its frog
sits on my lips and defecates.
It is old. It is also a pauper.
I have tried to keep it on a diet.
I give it no unction.

There is a good look that I wear
like a blood clot. I have
sewn it over my left breast.
I have made a vocation of it.
Lust has taken plant in it
and I have placed you and your
child at its milk tip.

Oh the blackness is murderous
and the milk tip is brimming
and each machine is working
and I will kiss you when
I cut up one dozen new men
and you will die somewhat,
again and again.