neglect is the worst death, I think.
she spoke with her eyelashes and felt with her hair,
like tentacles and synapses and silent films.
ode to succulents and burnt coffee particles floating to my nostrils but not the unfinished sentence in her high school yearbook.
she put that bookshelf together and it's still standing, holding up the corner of the wall.
ode to magic words like moist, primordial, Moroccan, and sinew but not my father's birthday.
his jacket smelled of leather and grease and I learned to tye knots on his shoes on the the cold-morning floor of the foyer.
ode to rollercoasters and goosebumps but not ultragloss magazine spreads or forty story buildings.
she thought of elevators and made them all silver like rockets or submarines not tunnels or wombs.
ode to your favorite story but not winter steering wheels or spiced apple cider.
she kissed your nose for a blank stare and I felt the wettest raindrop sliding on glass, splattering and splitting on my bare, freckled shoulder.
