when punching mattresses gets old

i am 16 again
with no one to hold me.

i speak through the crack
in the closet door. she would've
found it funny if i stayed. i think of her
sandpaper skin and stained duvet
because they are the only things
i remember about her.

i imagine a situation where
i never lost my love and kept my appetite.
everything is so clear until it suddenly isn't.
the last coherent thought i ever had
was when i was in high school
and the whole world was against me.

you know, when i felt alive.

i can't make this sound
poetic anymore. she sleeps with
her jeans on and i feel like i'm looking
for something that isn't there.

i imagine the dogs
are barking like they used to.

the years
have not yet caught up with me.
my mother holds me in her palms
and simply stares. 20 years of withdrawals
are etched on her knuckles.

my father dwells on the couch
like an animal. his nose bleeds in his sleep.
he looks at me differently than
he looks at my sisters. i feel his guilt
stuck in my throat.

i was an angry child.
the parallels jar me, but i don’t
have to go to school this time.

whatever is inside of you lives in everyone.
sometimes there’s no one to blame
and sometimes there’s no one that’s innocent.
you need to grow now. you need to move now.
you’re not enslaved to this cycle; you’re
married to it. it will never love you back.
all of this is entirely your fault and
nothing can be salvaged.

the room spins in past tense.
i am notorious for making homes
out of nothing; a closet, a hospital bed,
the floor of your bedroom.

i try to glance at the doorway.
as always, i see nothing there but me.

i will haunt this place
and all the other ones i died in.
i will pull your teeth and make things
go bump in the night.

Spoiler

i wrote this in my notes app yesterday, posting it now

you are like me
if i was something gentler.
i say thank you for putting up
with me. you know how i always
keep things inside, bottle them up.
i know why you stir in your sleep.
if i were you, the guilt
would eat away at me too.

you shrivel me
smaller than i already am.
i try not to let you see it because
i know the kinds of things you are
capable of. i see you sitting next to me.
all you ever do is point and laugh;
sometimes i'm there,
but it's mostly when i'm not.

everything looks prettier fragmented.
i have pieces of you lodged in my ribcage,
my lower back, the bottoms of my feet.
all of it catches the light as i move.

(i imagine myself in your
family's old home. we made it back
before midnight. nothing has
come between us.)

i know exactly how
your heart beats, how you breathe.
i once memorized all your dips and your hills
and your plains. i think, just maybe, i know
you a little too well to be comfortable.

(i imagine your mother
still likes me, lets us hang out alone
in your room. this time, in my dreams,
i remember to lock the door.)

it wails like an infant
and completely deafens me.
it crawls down my spine
ever so softly and i shiver
from the tenderness. the loathing,
undisguised.

i remember where i am
and my eyes focus on your figure.
i imagine that
you are a terrible thing.

i could've sworn i heard you
moving around under the floorboards.

heartache is ghosts in the walls
and other obtrusive matters.
something unfurls right before me,
unrecognizable, aside from the eyes.
they were always the same. he looks healthier,
i say. healthier half beat to death.

the sun always rises
in front of me and sets in the back.
i let myself grieve just to feel it.

when a son is raised by his father,
he will always carry that burden with him.

i’ve been forced to learn how to be
comfortable placing my life in other hands.
the truth is that i’m not clean and i never really have
been since the beginning in any capacity.
it is over when it’s over. i think i’ve
always been chasing something unimaginable.

there is something about this that
haunts me beyond the ability of words.
manhood ushered in change deep in my core,
something far greater than personal growth.
my father told me, without words, it would be all
consuming. i'm afraid he was right.

i think it changed me in all the wrong ways.

Spoiler

I am spinning from reading the sheer MARVEL that your thread is. your poetry flows like music, and you have such a GRIP over your language, I genuinely don't know how you manage to make every single poem feel so meaningful and multi layered, and I will beg grappling with some of your lines here for many, MANY days to come

tell me your favorite song.
i will spend my nights wishing
i wrote it.

where there is potential, there is
everything that keeps us mortal

let me down gently

AND THE ENTIRE POEM AFTER

my mother holds me in her palms
and simply stares

healthier half beat to death

Some of my favorite lines from your thread! [Though I would quote this entire thread right back at you if I could

You've done so splendidly <3333

i have absolutely loved following your thread! thank you so much for sharing all this with us. some of the imagery was so special and really, truly amazingly written. nice work, friend! post some stuff so i can review it <3

she says she loves me, poetry and all.
i need to learn to make peace with that.

although small in the scheme of
things, these words will one day mean
something much greater. she says i speak
in tongues. i tell her i was born to be a poet
and that i can't control myself.

i will carry this around until it destroys me.
i think i could make her real proud.