terminal

Her hair was matted,
her face wrinkled,
her look seemed
to trickle pain.

Across the marble
she walked, pacing
through the maze
that marked her home.

With a stuttered step,
she fell and died.
The floor greeted her fall
as if by some knowledge of it all

And I sat there

looking at her
sprawled out
on the cold floor, 
watching her life seep
into linoleum, 
wondering if some
emergency team would
stop her playing death.

I remember
the moment her gray eyes
pierced mine and I remember
her walking, slowly
and I remember most 
the unceremonious thud
that marked the end 
of her being and becoming –
things only read
in stories and poems
and spoken about in hushed tones
or noticed from a distance, like
the faint whisper of the wind
I heard in her fall.

on being seventeen

After seventeen years of
living and breathing and feeling,
I almost want to rewind everything
and start over again,
to take the home video
and pop it in the VCR,
press the double, left-facing arrows
and watch that baby roll

backward, to where bikes
were all we had to get around,
speeding every inch of rubber
off of those blue demons.
We raced down the dirt road
like all we held dear was a mile away,
and we’d fall and jump up again,

because hurting was a waste of time.

But now it sits there, reeking of rust and remembrance,
its deflated wheels and crooked steering wheel

reminding me that some things we leave behind.
Now, when I walk out on that same road,
I feel myself sink in the soft dirt,

I cough as the dust fills my lungs,

I worry about what I don’t need,
I trip, and my skin opens, and I bleed.