Why Did You Let Me?

We were lying

in bed, I touched your hair

softly.

And you let me.

Build up hope

with that intimate touch.
 

Right before you turned

to face me.

With stones in your eyes

that said “GET THE FUCK OUT."

So I left 

without one more touch

just to remember you by.

And you let me.

Maybe you didn’t mean

to let me slip

through the cracks and the creaks

of the apartment.

But you did.

So when I miss you

I remember those stones,

what they say

about your heart.

Deda's Reading Glass

Light as a feather
of the frailest sparrow,
held in the strongest of hands.

Hollows along the bottom
so small 
you can feel them only
with your eyes.

Looks rough
but smooth
to the touch,
the tip of my fingers.

Dark black
overlapped
with silvery swirls,
rusted and dented and bent.

Small slice of glass
used to amplify
tales in a tongue
I still don't understand.

Out My Kitchen Window

I touch the cold metal,
spin it
and see flames.
Draw you closer to my face
your hot, red light
and breathe you in.

I watch you burn
the ember growing brighter
as it fills me.

Brighter and hotter
closer to my mouth 
inch by inch
until you grow cold

and fall away.
From one flick of my hand,
I control you
I make you.

You Jumped to the Ground, So High Death First

They say hindsight is 20 /20, with my glasses off it still hurts so clearly after 11 years.

We were not sisters or best friends, I was not the one that sucked all the happiness from your life. But I helped, even if it was just a few drops.

You were always yourself, openly. Maybe that's why everyone hated you. Everyone else wore masks, no one was good to their friends or lovers. You needed help in a place where no one knew how to be a friend. I am sorry for my ignorance and everyone else's. I am sorry it took you leaving and me leaving, and years of being sad and lost for me to see it.

I do not remember you doing a single mean thing to me and I do not remember doing one nice thing for you. When I cut my hair short you were the first one to see me. You told me I was pretty, in a time when I felt permanently ugly. I know I laughed at you for things that would have made me cry for myself. And it makes me cringe to think I ever thought "she was asking for it." I hate that you had to know the 15-year old me. I hate that when liking a boy made you sad and desperate and I knew exactly how you felt, I turned you away. It was out of loyalty to someone who never respected my loyalty.

You made me reflect on my unhappiness in a way I never had before, made it clear it came from me. When you jumped you laid all of our ugliness bare, for a few weeks at least. But all these years later I am still thinking of you, I am still apologizing. Maybe that's why I can never let sad people go. I have to save them all.

You helped me realize the person I was and helped me change it. You helped me see the world and people around me, what I was surrounding myself with. At this point I know I can choose my friends, my life, my happiness. I just wish I could have helped you know too.

I do not need to visit your grave because I do not need that block of cement to remind me. I think about you not only on your birthday and deathday, but throughout the year, through the years. I hope everyone else does too, I hope you seep into their skin and invade their brain until some of that ugly is pushed out.

I wish the person I am today could have been the friend you needed then. You would have given Hedda Gabler will to live, you went with vine leaves in your hair.