Do you feel strong?

With your cigarette in one hand, glowing

like the blinking light of the wind turbine, rotating

slowly in the breeze, ticking, making progress

towards the failure of your once healthy lungs.

 

Pressing the apple red cup to your lips,

drowning out the stress,

hiding nothing

but the color of your drink.

 

How does it make you feel?

Like you could fight Goliath like David did

Lift a wheel-less car from a pinned down man

With unknown, supernatural strength?

Of All the Things I Should Forget

I sat on the top of the stairs, knees tucked into my chest, as I watched you walk out my door. You said goodbye to my dad, climbing into your car. He had no idea why you were leaving so soon. There hadn’t been enough time for it to sink in, yet tears slid down my cheek. What happened, I didn’t want to say. It took everything I had not to go after you; I had to salvage any dignity I had left. I couldn’t believe it was over.

You seemed off when you finally came over that night. You sat on the bed, listening to me ramble on about my first day as an adult, smiling at all the right spots. Finally you got the courage to say, “We need to talk.”

I asked, “Are you going to break up with me?” followed by a laugh.

You said nothing.

“Oh, you are going to break up with me,” again I laughed.

You weren’t laughing. You stumble over words I’m sure you rehearsed. I wanted no part of it. I tried to get up and walk out of the room but you grabbed my arm to pull me back.

 “Don’t fucking touch me,” I said. In seconds, anger was transformed into sadness. I finally caved into your arms and you let me cry.

You don’t want me.

***

 I flashed back to junior high, when I first met you. We didn’t know we would be best friends. A few years later, you helped me dump my newest jackass of a boyfriend. You kept me safe as my personal body guard. You never let me down.

That summer, it finally clicked. You had liked me that whole time. I couldn’t believe I was so oblivious. The next two years we were together. We spent days on the soccer field, pretending we were pros. So many days spent watching George Lopez reruns until we both fell asleep. I remember the first time you told me you loved me.  I had loved you too.

***

I don’t know how we got here. You’re dressed in your army uniform, saying goodbyes before heading off to basic. I stand on the tips of my toes as I hug you one more time. “Bye bud. Keep in touch ok?” you ask. All I can manage is a nod. 

Bits and Pieces

Dreams are things I don’t understand

They come to me in pieces, broken

jagged, belonging to someone

else, incomplete

I have their pieces.

Give me a story, I’ll tell you the meanings:

Behind a pregnancy in fall, the birth

in May. The large white

oaks in the cemetery. The cross

in your purse on an impossible day.

My grandfather died when I was ten. He came to me in a dream. He walked in the door as if nothing had changed, his body free of cancer. He hugged like only a grandfather can. The sandpaper chin scraped my cheek as he kissed it lightly. He sat with the family, enjoying his old fashioned sour with olives.  He spoke of the four-wheeler rides down to the woods.  He loved to spend his time there.  He talked as if he knew he was dead. He always was a believer in God. If you go to the woods, you can still feel him there, as if he never left.

I never really got to know that man. Young age doesn't allow for lasting memories.  So many little things I’ll never remember. But they happened and I was there. But the little things pass away as quickly as the years.

 “Use them up the way they are,”

he always used to say.

 I’ll never know what that means.