Can’t back out now.
Taunted endlessly—
end of the world pressure;
At least it feels that way
when you’re twelve.

My heart beats like a war drum
as I stare into the murky water,
waves breaking hard against the shore.
Thirty feet up.
Maybe forty.
Maybe more.

“Don’t be a chicken!”
they yell from below

Deep breaths.

I step back.
Then forward again.
The ground vanishes

shitshitshitshitshitshitshit

I crash like a meteor
that forgot how to land,
as if gravity made a personal decision.

Pain—
sharp,
immediate,
everywhere at once,
like a thousand hot needles
deciding where I land

I wish I had learned how to dive

Across from me,
twenty people in jerseys of blue and red.
Beside me,
twenty more in black and white.
Insults fly back and forth—
a nonstop rally
of noise, heat, and hate

Reminded again of why
I avoid sports,
from another ride on the crazy train.

Across from me,
Ryan catches Linda
texting her ex
The words come fast:
“Whore!” he snaps—
every head in the car turns.
“Two pump chump!” she shoots back—
laughter ripples through the cabin

Reminded again of why
I avoid relationships,
from another ride on the crazy train.

An overload of the senses
I pull out my book
Feet up,
back against the glass—
checked out.
A couple quiet hours to myself.
An escape.

Reminded again of why
I avoid people,
from another ride on the crazy train.

Hearing the news,
like a strike of lightning.
Over and over,
“This can’t be real.”

I never imagined
how your absence would land in me

It’s more than sadness
Not even close.
It’s an earthquake
at the center of my chest

Tears come easily now
when you pass through my mind;
as if my body forgets how to function,
like breathing suddenly costs too much.

And then there’s anger.

It shows up without warning,
stays longer than it should

I hate you
so much…
…Sometimes.

I hate tou for becoming another statistic.
I hate you for leaving me with this.
I hate you for breaking something in me I didn’t know could break.

You are selfish
You were selfish

And then it shifts
into something heavier.
quieter.

Because then I remember us
Childhood things
Small moments
that still know my name

And it shifts again

another blow to the chest,
another piece of me missing
in a place I can no longer reach

Everyone says time heals.
As the time continues to pass
I know they’re lying.

Still,
there’s a strange comfort
in knowing you don’t hurt anymore.

That maybe you finally got what you were chasing:
the endless high
you ran after all those years.

Sometimes I even smile
thinking about how you’d laugh at me now,
tease me for all this crying.

I know
I know

And I’d tell you to shut up

because I will always miss you
because I will always love you
because I will always hate you

My sister.
My biggest wound.

You are everywhere in me now;
not just as a memory
but as something permanent.

Coasting along I-75—
and I mean that literally.
Traffic congealed,
refusing momentum

Then—
a flat tire.

Just like that,
my plans collapse:
Centennial Park,
downtown Nashville,
a borrowed couch,
laughter that never arrives

Instead—
the cold leather
of my Eclipse,
a makeshift shelter
from thunder that feels personal,
as if the sky has singled me out
for some small, unnamed offense

Three hundred dollars,
a tow,
and I am moving again—

though the landscape
withholds itself:
fog thick as breath,
blurring everything I meant to see;

while somewhere beyond it:
water runs,
birds gather their voices—
a world continuing
just out of reach.

Inside the car,
the air turns—
roadkill, manure,
something sour enough
to sting the eyes.
I keep driving,
as though arrival itself
might offer redemption

Expectation: miscalculated

Next time,
I’ll choose the sky

When the reaper came to collect
on the first warm day of fall,
people expected a performance
something theatrical,
grief loud enough to be admired.

I can do that.
I’ve done it before.

What they didn’t know:
you were never a good father.
Violence and alcohol
rarely leave room for that.

For years
I watched you soften for others,
my siblings,
your chosen reflections

while I stood just outside the frame,
unseen,
a presence you learned
not to notice.

For years
I studied the way my friends said
Dad
how easily it came,
how it meant something.

I wanted that ease.
I wanted you to look at me
and recognize what was yours.

I thought I was asking
for very little.

Over time,
wanting thinned into something else—
resentment,
then bitterness,
then a harder word
I still hesitate to name.

And still

I grieve
what never existed:
the conversations,
the ordinary afternoons,
the quiet accumulation
of being known.

I miss the time
we never had.

I miss the future
that never formed.

But most of all,
I am left with this:

nothing to miss of you,
and nowhere
to put it.

Spider webs
on my face

I thought I was prepared,
after studying
the matriarchs,
their faces
held up like mirrors:

my future,
already there.

Hundreds spent
on creams and soaps,
on lotions, oils—
the quiet rituals
of resistance.

How vain it sounds
when I say it aloud.

And for what,
I wonder,

tracing a finger
along my forehead,
around my eyes,
following each line

to where Charlotte
has already been at work.

Looking Over From My Hotel Window—
Hotel California,
Late November.
Midnight Confessions;
The Weakness In Me

Imagine:
Just About Seventeen
In the Ghetto,
The Dark End of the Street;
Somewhere Only We Know.

Your Hand in Mine—
Lose Control

Just Like Heaven,
Just Like Paradise,
Just One of Those Things