It would be a joke
to think I could ever forget
what this day is.

This will always be
your day.

For the rest of my life, I will
fight hard daily
not to miss you, but today
I will. Today you will
flood my mind as the rain
outside my window
engulfs the worms.

Today I will
wallow in the regret
I have been bottling
in jars and collecting in my closet.
I will tilt my head back and
empty
every single one until
I am drunk with self-hatred,
projecting black-and-white images
of you on the inside of my forehead
when I close my eyes.

Today I will
finally take the unopened gift
sitting on top of the fridge
I bought for your birthday
last year and
throw it away
alongside the wilted
beets
I never cooked.

I see you sitting in
the grass blowing
out the candles and I hope
I am a psychic; but how
contradictory it is
to wish
your loved ones well and
hope they are missing you,
too.

October 28th, 2015: happy birthday, leyitah // a.s.m

I. i saw your jar full of wrappers
and thought maybe you’d just developed
a sweet tooth recently. though
it never occurred to me that
white waxy wrappers
can carry
fun-dip powder and pixy stix, too.

II. i knew something
was wrong when
clouds fogged your eyes (grey and heavy
with rain);
so heavy
they could not look straight.
so heavy
they kept sinking.

III. at half past midnight you left
to ‘be right back.’
45 minutes later and i felt the thunder
shake the house; i knew
there would be rain
in your eyes.
At eight forty-five the next morning
(you normally never wake up before eleven),
you ‘stop at a friends’
before breakfast and return
empty-handed but eyes full,
veins full, blood full
of calm, full of ocean waves and
lullabies, full of
ice so cold you feel like you’re
on fire.

IV. you are forgetting
more and more
about me these days. it seems
you’re drifting farther away,
farther into
your veins.

V. i know that
i don’t know
how your mind rolls
on the tracks in your skull.
i never will
feel the hunger in your veins
for a needle that bites
so good. but every time a new
track mark paints your arm,
the train that’s riding them
runs over my heart.

for alex: i see you dissolving in front of me and am not sure what i’m supposed to do. // a.s.m

4/24/1915

i think I was born with
the taste of their blood in my mouth;
their story intertwined with mine
long before i was old enough
to start writing it.

the word genocide
passed down through generations–
an unwanted inheritance
laying heavy on our lips and
etched into the lines on
our palms.

a word small enough to hold
in the palms of your
hands holds the history
of a nation.
a word comprised of the lives
of 1.5 million, written in sets of
footprints in desert sands.

we are a people defined
by genocide.
we are the generations born
from the blood spilled before
us– a people who will fight to
have their history
bloom bloody red
with a stem of thorns.

their battle,
their blood, their lives
are now ours.
There is no their.
We are our.