On Sunday,
I bought a gumball out of his favorite machine.
put my faith into the rusted attic
put my faith into the rusted attic
And I wrote him into poetry,
into forgiveness,
took away his pain,
made it worth nothing more than the words I dug up to describe it.
I bled him pretty.
Like the black rose that bloomed in the center of his shirt
Thud.
The silence screamed volumes.
Rang like the toll of church bells.
His heart — spilling poetically,
His spine — crumbling down like a palace of cards.
I reincarnated him into a man worthy of forgiveness,
I gave him a home in the cramped alley of my skull,
labeled it Heaven,
Heaven, a gift to the living,
performed autopsies on all nights he did not leave.
The nights where I prayed in the name amen,
I dreamt him walking towards an alley
a gun cocked in his mouth.
The nights where I used to write him godly
I chose words such as righteous, Daddy.
But nicotine has a way of craving sin,
has a way of creating angels out of fathers.
I watched him light his pack like candles before bedtime,
like he was lost without her nightlight,
Her sensation ignited him,
burnt his body up into flames,
Slowly—
Symphonically—
Wrapping him around her arms —He held her,
Romantically,
because she wanted to grow old with him,
Stole him from his lover, his family—
me.
Danced with him under street lights that radiated like
Multicolored malignancies.
He refused to leave her,
Could not live without worshipping her.
She gave him a heaven.
And I gave him hell.
Chose, spit and cursed the kind of words I had to love someone hard enough to learn how to use.
I dreamt you walking towards the alley,
A gun cocked in your own hands.
A rose, blooming in the center of your shift.
Thud.
I dreamt you walking out of your own funeral,
laughing,
I dreamt you here.
If you could, you said,
you would crucify yourself.
Bleed out your sickened self.
Let your body become a church again —
Holy.
Reincarnate into a man worthy of my forgiveness.
Forgiveness is the sweater I can finally fit into.
On Sunday,
I bought a gumball out of your favorite machine.
I stuffed it into my pocket, my mouth, the bottom of your bed.
Its sweetness danced on the tippee toes of my tongue,
cheated hopscotch with two feet,
just the way you taught me how.
It tasted like a gift from you.
