grief & glass houses

today is your birthday

the same day as last year

& i’d of known you ten years in august

time turns to sand as it

passes. stacks up

in the space between my eyebrows

since you left

i’ve tread so carefully

eggshells line my lungs

& every decision is soured with

what-if?

what-if they wake up dead

tomorrow?

so shouldn’t i let them

swallow me up

tonight?

i don’t know if i’ve dealt with your

absence

in the way that i should

my fingertips

yellowed

& i wake every day

with a headache

i stare holes into walls

& steal his old drugs

& i keep

falling in love

and just leaving

i tried to explain

(how grief is a hollowed out fig

swarming with maggots

and rot)

across the table from my boyfriend

tried to

hold my voice taut &

traced the thick web of his hand

with a cigarette butt

he didn’t understand, nobody does

that i will be violet and bruised

from here and now on

existing in melancholy

my father says

will get you nowhere

he tells me to listen to the doors

let jim carry me through the pitch-black

and back

all in thirty-four minutes

when my friends

tell me they’re worried

about death’s

looming near

i say again,

again

relish your time

& don’t waste it on grief

you will have plenty of time

for that

after

they’re gone

for my childhood dog & others i’ve loved