The Poem I’d Never Write

This time, I’m 32

In the arms of the one I love,

Between white bedroom walls

And satin sheets,

Yet I still remember you as the boy

Who swallowed whole my mouthful of a name,

With a straight smile

And a purple bruise around his neck,

Fragile wings, mimicking a broken ribcage.

This time, I’m 28

And you are both my lover facing the orange sunrise

And the man next to my deathbed in a wheelchair.

I tell you to blow my brains out to the radio

And you do nothing but laugh,

Your throat still has the purple line

And I ask you if God is real, I fear too much

Wonder why you’re still here

And your voice is now nothing but television static.

This time, I’m 25

And I’m standing at your doorstep, Bell ringing,

My stomach’s sinking and I step back,

On the cracks of your porch steps and I call out your name.

The flickering light inside your window reminds me of judgement day

You say that the sunflowers caught in your windpipe are obliterating

Your voice

And the choice here is to let me in.

You don’t.

I’m 21 now

And the lights in your window flicker

On and off and on and off and on and off and on

Until it goes out for the rest of its life,

And your pendulum self with the purple neck swings by.

Suddenly it’s December again

And it has been December for years now

And I watch you roam around in your careless shell,

A lost tourist in your own body,

Nobody seems to recognise you anymore.

Even when dreaming I don’t say anything,

Even when dreaming I don’t try even though I know your mind

Is praying for the rain to wash away all the blood

From the backseat of your hearse

And you have forgotten there is no such thing as a

December rain.

So now every morning,

I try to remember that earth did to your existence

What ocean water does to seashells

And since then I’ve been praying

Even though God seems like a dirty pipe dream

I carry this cross on my back like a perpetual scar

And let it dig deep into my spine

Let these words whisper some life into you

Because I know poetry can only do so much;

These words cannot bring back the lines on your forehead

Or the freckles on your chest

Or the life in your heart

So when all the saltwater is soaked up in my pillowcase

Which still smells like you

And reaching for you doesn’t seem like muscle memory anymore

I realize,

All the words I have ever swallowed in silence

Will never amount to the callousness I threw at you,

And the burden of the things I never said

Can never amount to the weight

Of ‘too late’