Sincerely, Jennifer x

I told you that I had left New York for good,

but I told you a lot of things. 

I’m not a liar,

I just don’t keep up with the future,

and so I really never meant to make it back here,

and I really thought that I had moved past this,

but here we are,

unfortunate and uncomfortable. 

I returned, 

with nothing but my naked, childlike heart,

but you wouldn’t see me,

skulking through the shadows, 

behind locked doors and icy walls.

I don’t want to sleep in the lake,

but the cool waters catch up to me, no matter where I go,

and so I sleep to the daunting drips,

watching old wounds performing residencies on Vegas stages to bored crowds of tigers and troublemakers. 

I awake, and the earth grumbles and groans.

You crawl, with filthy fingernails from the ground as it shatters.

You do not say a word,

and I am grateful for the glum silence. 

It isn’t about a girl this time. 

I’m not sure that it was about a girl to begin with. 

It’s about you,

and I watch you chew over that,

in your cocktail of broken glass and broken confidences,

as if I am audacious for asking my questions and bothering you with my bother. 

You stare at the hole in my chest,

twiddling the tiny bullet in between your finger and your thumb,

and I can see quite clearly that you are wondering how on Earth it caused such a crater. 

You created a monster, once,

wounded it in battle and then wound up your engagements. 

Off to the lake house, 

if you can call it such a thing,

el casa del crackhouse,

without the crack,

because we are a lightning and yayo family, thank you very much. 

You line up the bullet with the empty space,

eyes, empty as you circle me and sigh with the apathy that I have learned how to emulate. 

You tire of the bullet, 

flicking it towards the line up of losers who portrayed you in various cinematic misadventures,

and their eyes flicker as they awaken,

dancing across the dewy grass with dark smiles. 

I don’t want it to be time,

but it is time,

because you say so. 

I just wanted to talk,

but I must be consumed,

because it has already happened.

I don’t remember what I meant to say,

or how I intended to break out of this pattern,

but the bullet isn’t done with me yet,

and I made the mistake of missing her.