souvenirs, etc.

Was I ever a child?
Was I really made? Or, had?
I don’t remember waking up before today
though I grasp, pull on my bedsheets as if
as if they were bought, washed, made by you.

You - you
Shadows on the sidewalk, behind me
Fragments in the mirror;
The hairline fractures in our teeth -
the pressure to smile and talk to each other.
The weight of our eyelids fold over my irises like awnings
over a flower shop on a rainy day.
I can’t tell if it’s beautiful or a shame for the rain to fall all over like this.
Nourishing to some -
a reason to sulk to others.

Times you wouldn’t even think it,
I wonder if you cry.
I wonder if you cry from laughing so hard, or when your heart breaks.
A joke you heard on TV; a young girl who could be yours
only if she wore glasses, and bared her teeth in a smile
that favored the left side of her face,
likely made
when she tried retracting back into the dark.

Meals are hard. Full and emptying, confusing.
I wonder if you’ve eaten already, somewhere down the 405.
And if you have: what?
I won’t bear children,
I can’t bear it myself

When I’m surrounded by people,
there’s a sudden splitting open; hands ripping apart
a crisp apple in half.
In the center are your seeds, and the question of if
you have friends,
a woman you think is beautiful,
a man whose kiss you allow yourself to imagine -
tell me who caresses you.

Once I would grimace.
Now I pray to God someone holds you
and tells you how they’re less lonely.

Always always
I think about the few more times.
The last ones, when we might not even know it.
How many more, do you believe?
Ten? Forty? None?
Only on Christmas?
As the New Year’s ball drops?
5?
4?
3?
2?
1?

Later, I’ll hear your voice
when I ask what you want for Christmas.