Free Churro

The party’s over

It’s been over for sixteen songs or so

And I’d like to show everyone the door

But the ones that meant shit -

they left a long time ago.

Thread by thread

Like a hand-knit sweater

Coming apart.

Sinking into a sea of solo cups

I wonder if they just mean something

cause they respected themselves enough to leave.

~

I remember when I was sixteen

My mom would leave home dramatically

She’d lock herself outside

and weep in the corridor, motionless.

What are you doing? I’d say

And she’d say

“I have nowhere else to go”

I spent a good deal of my life

Never wanting to be her

All this while she was burning into my brain

That people never truly leave

She was wrong

Or maybe I’m just mad they beat me on my way out

I’d watch her come back in after an hour

And she’d sink back into the couch

Pull at the little bit of yarn she had left

And start knitting again.

~

It’s funny how

you wake up one day and

It’s been 13 years already

But I’m not fighting to justify every second anymore

The resilience is quieter now

Bathed in apathy most times and

For some

I just really want to feel myself combust

Like stubbing a cigarette on the grass and watching it

Rage into a wildfire across California.

Burning a hole outwards

Always outwards.

Emptiness always begins within.

~

Three years ago

My mother handed me a scarf

The colors mostly faded except one end

Which was a bright sapphire blue.

“I couldn’t understand

How to construct a neck”

I’m just glad somewhere along the way

She learnt to construct a spine.

After all that thread

She saved up pennies for

Wasted

Ever so slightly
She grew up

~

I read a meme the other day

It said that growing up meant knowing

You’re toxic too.

And I,

I guess I don’t even know what self-awareness means anymore.

It feels like

I’m outside the window of my own life

Looking in

And nothing’s on TV.

You sit there on the couch you bought

In the house you built.

You still have nowhere else to go.

Head stripped to strings

Thread by thread

You wring your own neck.

And I just wish you had used it

To throw her a line instead.