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I never saw the hat to be fitting for the taxidermic child

Does his mother still look back not knowing where he wondered?

Could she know his life ended so that he could sit on display?

Would she recognize his smell through the stuffed seams?

Was her life met with the same fate?

I took the hat off as some sign of respect

I stroked his fur and stared at his glazed marble eye

I pray he’s unaware of the dank warehouse in which he resides

The calf was gone when I returned - the hat along with him

I don’t write about the mornings you wrap yourself around me

I don’t speak of your laugh when you kiss me

I don’t think about how I count down the minutes till you come to the place we call a home.

I can’t let myself acknowledge how I sleep better than I ever have when you are breathing next to me

I won’t.

Love is a fickle thing.

I’ve seen it go far too easily.

I never held it until now .

It flew into my chest and gnawed straight into the middle.

Retrospective jealousy of you finding love before me is what stops me.

The fortune teller in Key West said it’s time for us to bury our hatchets.

But what if the hatchet is what is holding me ?

What am I to do if there is no you?

I know I’ve changed since that first glance.

I want to let my armor down

Show my cards

Tell you what I’m thinking

I’m thinking of white veils and Christmas cards

Of post stamps and bassinets .

I feel like a sap leaning on the edge of a cliff

But I mean it more every day

Go get fucked up in the back of a car

Let the pain seduce its way through

Bent over in a downward spiral

But why would I do that?

Why would I choose destruction?

I can sleep for the first time in decades

Our life painted on our walls

Our footsteps in our tiled floors

I’ve never shared space like this before

You see parts of me before I have time to

My grief is a commodity not meant to be consumed

I don’t know me yet

For the first time

Not under the influence

Of any liquor or dark eyes

I thought about how beautiful the sun was shining through these trees

The birds singing as the snows melting

And how much it aches when I try and breathe

I felt disgusting afterwards

Alone with the smoke in my throat

And a hunger raging inside me

I’ll never smoke another

At least Not until I do

But I swear it’s not a habit I’ll be keeping while sober

I’m really sorry mom

I know you hate the smell and how the smoke breaks down the lungs

And How it wasn’t your fault how it all turned so wrong.

I wish you were were here to yell at me and cause a scene

I hope you still recognize me from wherever you are now

I am no longer a daughter.

I am a consort of hidden sorts.

I am no longer feeble.

I am bleeding at the seams.

I am no longer surviving.

I am now just existing in my own head.

I am no longer believing in forgiveness.

But I hope I am.

Just waiting for last call

Now No one’s daughter

Just a set of bones headed back to an early grave

Barely a day without a drink in 70 days

Wondering if the liver is keeping score

The smoke used as a device to raise the dead

Now just lays to rest shaking hands

I knew better than to ask you to stay

The body can only take so much

Extremities grow cold

Hallways stretch in silence

Rain shrinks the skyline

Heads bowed in acknowledgment