I PROMISED YOU A POEM

There is nothing graceful about the way I grieve or write things.

In fact, I counted six empty beer bottles on my night stand this morning

and woke up as a train track, and I haven’t figured out how to turn

that into poetry.

But you wanted to make damn sure you’d be remembered, didn’t you?

You wanted the words,

the spilled blood,

mess on the bathroom floor,

bones in a graveyard,

all to mourn the death of you.

 

But my body is not an old tomb

I do not need to hold onto your ashes just because you touched me

I have learned how to shed my skin so that your fingerprints

do not transform into scars.

 

And you forgot this part

And you thought of me as only darkness

And you thought of me as only air and water

And you thought of me as only an ocean of sad

And you thought it would be easy

so you turned your hands into razor blades

and held me by my limbs at night

pretending you could save me

by cutting me open.

 

I told you I would write you something,

here it is.