On the face of her phone, Wileen programs a message to herself
so that when the alarm clock rings the screen flashes
"EVERY DAY IS ONE DAY LESS.
EVERY DAY IS ONE DAY LESS."
Jordan tattoos the words "Forgive me"
in thick black letters on the inside of his arm
so that when he looks at his wrist
he will remember to not hate himself so much.
What they both keep forgetting is that there is life after survival.
After Dave left, Mary started sticking her face
between the film projector and the movie screen
so that when the credits roll
she still gets to be somebody.
When Tara’s past comes back
she mashes chalk into the sidewalk
until her knuckles bleed.
She scribbles and scrapes and scribbles and scrapes
until the words take shape
and this is what they say:
they say
"I wanna die motherfucker die
DIE motherfucker.
Hold tight if I love you cause it might not last long."
Y’all, we’re all gonna die.
That’s the exciting part.
It’s learning how to live for a living.
That's the tricky bitch.
Just ask Denise,
whose family taught her when she came into this world
that family equals love.
So Denise took that shit seriously,
but after a lifetime of craving acceptance from their cruelty
she now finds herself jamming polaroid pictures
of these people into her typewriter
and pounding out the last letter of the word mercy
over and over again.
She strikes the key;
Y. Y? Y? Y? Y? Y?!
And the answer?
The answer comes in the form
of a hand-written letter
from the moon that says:
"This is brutally beautiful. So are we.
This is endless.
So are we.
We can heal this.
Signed, Crater Face
P.S. See me for who I am. We’ve got work to do."
But my father, he didn’t read moon
he didn’t speak moon
and he didn’t write moon.
So there was no note left next to his body
when he chose to leave this world on purpose
without telling us where he was going or why.
There are still days you can catch me
tape recording eternal silence and playing it backwards
for an empty room just so I can listen to his dying wish.
Yes, it’s true, and the apple
it doesn’t fall too far from the tree,
but thank goodness my family tree was in an orchard
on a hill that rolled me to the river,
and that river ripped me through the rapids
and those rapids rushed me into this moment
right here right now
with you at the mouth.
This is my church,
and if church is a house of healing,
hallelujah.
Welcome, come on in as you are.
Have a look around.
Stay out of my porn.
There are massive stacks of bad choices in my backyard.
Clearly I have not yet reached enlightenment
beyond a few fleeting moments,
but I’m trying
and I found something here I want you to have.
It ain’t much.
Just a story,
but it’s all I’ve got so take it.
It’s called Dillon.
Dillon’s drug of choice was more,
so he took more and more
until the day he woke up babbling in a pool of his own traffic jam,
realizing he is killing off the best parts of himself
and claiming he could read people’s skin.
When he looked down at his heart flap it said
"Boy, go find your spine and ride it outta here."
Wileen’s gut said "Day one";
Jordan’s arms, "FULLY FORGIVEN";
Mary’s face, "The Endless";
Tara’s knuckles, "Healing";
Denise’s fingertip said "C? C.C.C.C.C!";
and Dillon said,
my smile,
it said, “Fix it”.
So I came back here
to the mouth of the river
to look at my own reflection under the moonlight
and see what it says for myself.
Where down my whole body it is written
"P.S. See me for who I am. We’ve got work to do."
As for Crater Face, I can’t speak for that guy.
His skin is a brutally beautiful handwritten letter from the sun.
<3
