I’m sorry every poem

I write is about you.

I don’t know who I am

if not broken and bruised.

I don’t know why I’d fear dying

when there’s nothing to lose—

and I don’t know what happened

to the laces on my shoes.

_(You untied them once in sixth grade._

_I’ve left them that way ever since.)_

_(When I touched the bruise_

_below your eye,_

_you didn’t wince.)_

_(When the moon kisses the sun,_

_it do...

Now Ellie was a boy,

though folks often mistook him

for a girl.

Not just ‘cause of his name,

but his long blonde curls.

See, his full name was Elliot,

named after his pa—

but that man wasn’t worth much.

He left Ellie and his ma.

So his ma made sure her boy

wouldn’t carry his flaws.

She threw Ellie in the tub, scrubbed him

‘til his skin was red and raw.

Then she stuck him in a dress

and sent him o...

When I cry at 1am,

I’m one year old again

and I don’t know what to do

with my hands, so I chew on them

and hit things.

The TV sings, spills color across the room.

There’s no way something so bright

could rot my brain.

When I cry at 1am,

I’m one year old again—

and I’m lovable.

My mother kisses her existence

into my skin

so I’ll always remember.

But sometime around first grade,

her kisses turned t...

Their stomachs rumble

with heaven’s emptiness,

their hands shatter in each other.

They know God is watching with

his squinting, demanding eyes,

but still, they kiss,

something soft, something small,

something that does not beg forgiveness.

They wake each morning

with dirt in their mouths,

feet raw from running.

They have made themselves unclean,

or so the holy books say.

They bathe in hot springs...

Pieces of bone

that once belonged to someone,

now drifting, endlessly swallowed

by the infinite throat of the earth.

_I prayed to God._

_I did._

_Swear._

But the devil answered first.

He reached out—

I still have the message he left.

A question,

one I was already trying to answer:

_Who am I when no one is watching?_

Blue fires.

Moldy cheese.

A bullet lodged in some Jane Doe’s skull.

_(We will...

Open your eyes—

the war is over now.

But I’ve forgotten

how to let go of the trigger,

so you’ll have to show me how.

Bare your teeth,

mimic a grin.

Together, we have killed,

yet you still won’t let me in.

Before heaven cried for us,

you were ready to die.

Now you fear what’s inside of us,

and you’re not ready to fly.

I said I love you.

You said you know

pain, too.

I said I’d die for you.

You s...

So, we were kind.

While we had the time,

we focused on cleaning the earth—

broken glass, plastic with rims once touched

by the mouths of the dead.

We took great care in pretending

nothing had happened.

The heart is muscle.

As long as it beats, you are alive.

It contracts, it pushes, it moves blood

through the body, even if broken.

The brain fires signals—

tells the heart to keep its pace,

tells...

I invented sharing,

and I invented pain!

I invented caring,

and I invented shame!

I despise those created

with no hope, no faith,

so I damn them to death,

I damn them to wraith!

I am real in my fakeness,

I am fake in what’s real.

I let the children burn

and created the hurt you feel!

I am evil in my goodness,

good in what’s evil!

I am the reason war persists,

I am “_the bad people_”!

Show me t...

He says Helios must hate him,

the way he can never catch the sun.

He says the drowning hurts him

and kills all he’s ever learned.

He says he is the fire, the fuel,

and the one that burns.

He says I am the in-between,

the fire extinguisher that doesn’t

quite work,

the happiness endings bring,

and the guilt that quietly lurks.

He says I played him,

found his heart, then broke it

just for fun.

He s...

It had stopped raining hours ago, but the air was still heavy with it, the pavement slick beneath their feet. The world moved patiently around them. Harvey shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, though the chill he felt had nothing to do with the cold.

Beside him, Will walked just a little too far away, his jaw tight, eyes fixed straight ahead.

This uncomfortable silence had been haunting the...