they chose family

i

you fucked rosie near easter and for the first time in a year i pulled out the bible my sister gave me for christmas and turned to the resurrection and snorted a line of coke off the page and read for an hour until i came down the women brought the spices to the tomb and saw the stone door rolled open and the body of christ nowhere to be found HE HAS RISEN she cried WHY DO YOU LOOK FOR THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD? the men scoffed to the grievers and i always thought a better question was WHY DO THE LIVING KEEP SEEKING OUT THE DEAD? they’re fucking dead right i mean jesus christ well anything can change in 3 days so i decided to give you 6 because you aren’t the son of God in my eyes

anymore

you are nothing but an empty fucking tomb with the rock rolled shut

ii

the night you broke up with me i heard a spring thunderstorm roll over the mountains for the first time since i was a little girl the sky turned coal black and the wind picked up the back patio door and slammed it so hard against the wood that i jolted awake and my hand immediately jumped to where yours would have been if you had been lying next to me (i still keep your spot empty in case you decide to sneak in at 2 am again) the house shook so bad i thought a tornado was about to touch down and i prayed to god that it would and that it would lift me up and take me somewhere better but it passed in a couple of hours and i stayed right here in a bed that we used to shake ourselves

iii

the day after you broke up with me i was watching your niece when your aunt ran into the house holding a black sock in her hand SARA HELP she screamed and i ran over and inside the sock was a baby rat that hadn’t even opened his eyes yet it was bleeding out of its mouth and all of its siblings were long dead but your aunt put the sock in my hand and told me to go throw it in the river i walked down the hill and the river was high from the storm the night before and i unwrapped the sock and the rat’s little fingers grabbed mine and tightened and i knew i couldn’t let that baby rat drown i’ve been treading water for so long i’ve come to fucking hate it i walked back up the hill and i got your father and showed him and asked him for a hydrocodone and some milk and a syringe i mashed up the pain pill in the milk and thought of you bent by the computer desk snorting a line after stealing one from him your nostril still coated in white powder don’t you love the taste of the drip? you always asked me yes i said even though i fucking hated it and it made me want to puke but it was one more thing you and i shared together in private that i couldn’t let go of so i wrapped the rat in a rag and took him outside on the porch and syringe fed him the hydro and milk it took 3 syringes before that baby started to slow his breathing i kept my finger on his heart the whole time and felt as the beats slowed until there was nothing i held that stupid rat in my hands until it was cold and hard and cried cried because somedays i wish someone would do what i did to him

to me

i’ve dreamed about that rat twice now since then and both times you come up on the porch and smile your sly smile and convince me not to kill it and we put it in a shoebox and it lives until our wedding day

iv

after you told me you cheated on me all those times you looked at me like a worm looks at a bird before it pecks it to fucking shreds and asked if i ever had done it to you i narrowed my eyes and barely choked out the word no in disgust but what i didn’t tell you was when i was in minneapolis for a night last year i laid in bed beside the only other person i ever loved besides you all night and talked about my scars and what was going through my head every time i got a new one she traced each one on my legs and arm and my body seized up like the night you first ran your fingertips over every goddamn inch of me and being loved by someone else felt possible again i didn’t say a word about you all night even when she wrapped her hand around mine and said what a beautiful ring because her smile made me happier than you had in months the way her curly hair fell in front of her face made me want to push it back and kiss her until my lips were numb the way her body breathed in bed made me want to crawl on top of her and show her what i really am but

i didn’t (that’s the word that separates me from you, now)

we turned off the light and our backs to each other and fell asleep for 2 hours before she had to drop me back off at the airport and believe me when i say i thought about sleeping in i would have put my entire life on hold to spend another day with that cold fucking skyline and incredibly warm girl because i knew that somewhere along the way your fingertips didn’t touch me right anymore

v

you came home on a tuesday morning and brought me white chocolate m&ms and a pack of marlboro golds i knew you weren’t going to stay just by looking at you walk through the door you never brought presents unless you wanted forgiven we went into our room and you asked me to hold you and you cried into my chest for a good hour i rubbed your back (fresh claw marks from rosie on them, i always wondered how you got that scar on your back) and you asked me to stop to just hold you as you heaved into me snot pooling around my breasts i held you like you were my child because i loved you in that way too i loved you in all possible ways a woman can love a man i held you tighter every minute that got closer to 3 PM i hoped my perfume still brought you comfort i hoped you could feel my ribs cut into you from not having eaten in a week in a half (you did this to me) and when you left i fell to my knees on your porch and weeped for you for me for what our life could’ve been i cried for the women who just went to a tomb to mourn only to find the man had risen and left and was nowhere to be found and probably left them on read on facebook for days, too, and i hoped that on the car ride back to asheville all you could think about was that rosie would never love you as you cried like a little fucking baby boy and apologized for taking a ring off her finger the way that i

still do

vi

even after all of this

,