Say _remember_ like it’s nothing.

Sour tears down your cheek,

worship on your tongue.

You don’t count the days like I do,

the days until winter arrives

to die quietly inside me.

Say _carnage._ Say _surrender._

I remember a poet

who happened to be a man,

who happened to be crushed

by the one thing he called his will.

I see him now,

building himself up,

tearing himself down,

as if waiting for someone

to say _stop,_

to save him from his hands.

He was good,

always good.

And I cry for his absence,

because I know

it comes with my own.

I could have done more.

I could have told him

he was special,

that he meant everything.

But now I carry

this burden we call

memory.