Selfish

Selfish now, I’m going to be selfish now, when I think of them and I think of you and knives and the metaphorical glue that won’t fix what you’ve literally hacked into pieces, pieces and pieces and pieces, it’s true, pieces of me and pieces of you, pieces of us, pieces of skin, pieces of her and pieces of him, pieces of me and pieces of you, of my sisters and father and my mother, too.

Selfish, now, I’m going to be selfish, now, listen how I choose to complain and cry and chain smoke cigarettes in the form of old regrets and all the wrong outlets for anger, and worse because you’re not a stranger, there’s too many ways to displace the confusion that comes with your face and the number seven because you were the seventh and I hate October fifth through the seventh, interesting how things like that happen, how things like that happen to people like us.

Selfish, now, I’m going to be selfish, now, when I think of myself and the years I lost, the years that some say are the best in their lives, but I was watching my family die, and I spent them with nothing but black on my mind and in my heart that lost all its blood and stopped beating when the aorta was nicked by the kitchen knife that she used at Thanksgiving dinner.

Selfish, now, I’m going to be selfish, now, and say things I really don’t think and don’t care to say because sometimes it’s good to say things you don’t mean so you can realize you don’t mean them and how much I never hated you for slicing through everything I loved.

NS '09