I am used to feeling broken.

I have been through things.

Your ashes spilled onto my shoe.

Ashes, Ashes — 

In my closet, the ashes of my brother.

Rosy Doyle’s ashes in my closet.

The post man brings your ashes to my door.

He rings the bell.

I sign to receive what is left of your body.

Your ashes —

My oldest brother’s ashes on my dining room table.

I tell you, I have been through things.

Sometimes  memory is a lot like rust.

I have spent nights on a tar roof waiting for stars to fall.

I pretend to be brave.

I like being different.

When I was younger I fell in love
with the idea of kissing him.

My fear refuses to let my mind be honest.

My heart fears to release.
 I tell you, the truth I understand is too vibrant.

These three things I trust —
But I don’t trust enough to tell you
 what three things they are.

Color on canvas is like separations of me from me.
 Only better than.

I love that a poem need not have meaning.

I won’t explain.

 —  I keep waiting for some old wounds to shape shift into scars.

I love sparklers and the evening star.

Silence and the dictionary.

Sometimes I settle for fragments.

Someone asked me this:  are you valuable?

I think I said too quickly — no.

I don’t journal —

It never was what he said
but rather how he looked at me.

We were not about language —-

His eyes told me all I needed to hear.