Dear Best Friend (I),

I.
Remember when
we used to talk on the phone all day, all night
and people used to say
Is that phone attached to your ear yet?
It's four in the morning and
I'm bleeding again and
this is not happening, I am not here
because once, I believed
I was nothing without you.

II.
Remember when
I asked you what you would do if I died?
I'd throw myself in after you.
I don't know what I'd do without you.


How ironic is it that,
after all those years and all those times
you're the one that's killing me.
Six blue pills every morning
enough to keep my eyes down
so I don't have to see the likes of you.

III.
Hey love! Want to hang out on Friday?
Want to apologize for the half year, missing?
For that one time
when all I wanted was for you to answer the fucking phone
and I called and I called
and you were with him
and her
and them
and you weren't missing me
and you didn't even know I was Gone
Gone.

I'm gone. You don't know my name. I am not your love,
you have no right to say my name,
you have no right to look me in the eye and ask me how I am when you know
damn well
that every time the group is together and I am gone
you don't care.


Or what about that one time when
my girlfriend
the only person I ever truly, truly trusted
wanted
loved
cheated on me for the second time?
But
you were too busy to answer my text and the next day
you asked me
Are you high?


IV.
What's it like
watching your best friend die?

Dial Tones

My brain never learned to appreciate the soft lines my eyes fed it
until the day you died.
Now, for hours on end I can sit and miss your distorted finger joints
your blurry wrist bones
the way you said things when we were alone


I've found a good drinking friend in the dial tone
I've found the operator's breath to be quite soothing after the fifth round
and I've found that
if I sit long enough with a phone to my ear
my brain makes it easier to imagine that you exist
and so I sit and discuss good times
trace over red lines
close the blinds and pace til the sun comes up
and sometimes I manage to forget you're no longer here

Muggy Nights

1. It's never easy

starting over

Being the only to remember

  sneaking out

  taking down our hair

  spinning in circles

  loudly cursing the muggy air

2. It's never easy

looking over the train tracks

cold hands, shaking

going home

alone.

3. And to get to sleep on muggy nights

it's never easy

sleepy brain mistakes

  thick air for shoulders

  warm breeze for breath

  Dreams for reality.

Nothing is ever easy, they say

This was never true until I lost you.