Memorial Day 2026

May 26th will be 15 years since you died.

But who’s counting?

I am.

You’ve been dead as long as I was alive when I met you.

When you said I was your best friend, I went home on a cloud and wrote it in my LiveJournal.

Today, because I’m an emotional masochist, I googled your name.

I like window-shopping pain.

There was an article describing you: “If Ashton L.M. Goodman had a choice of driving a sedan or a 40-foot tractor-trailer, she’d pick the tractor-trailer.

'She was a work-hard, play-hard girl,’ said a friend, Airman 1st Class Vrajhi Brisby. ‘She didn’t care if she broke a nail, got greasy, got sweaty. If she messed up her hair, she didn’t care. Even if you were sitting in the truck, she got dirty.’”

And I know that was true. But other things were true too. How hard you worked to be one of the boys. How quickly you outwardly mocked softness in yourself. How furious you still were at your father for leaving your mom for another woman. As if being harder than everyone else could spare you from becoming like her.

The article continued:

“Her vivacious spirit, zest for life, and eagerness to experience it all will forever be remembered by our team,” said Capt. Stacie N. Shafran.

It’s a bitter pill to know that all they can do is remember your spirit and life, and they did so little to preserve it.

The article was in The Military Times in their “Honor the Fallen” section, which seems like an exceptionally bleak feature. I clicked on “Home,” and it took me to a 9x7 grid of young faces framed by uniforms. Below the grid, arrows to more pages of the grid. It wasn’t until the 30th page that I saw your face, smack dab in the center, a photo from your Facebook, in your uniform.

I didn’t keep going through the pages. At that point, knowing there were at least 1,890 of these faces with articles attached was enough. How many more pages of 9x7 grids are there? I don’t want to know. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

I’m not alone in my pain, yet I am alone. Behind each of those thumbnails and stories: “Greatest guy ever” and “Would give you the shirt off his back.” Why are the dead always the greatest fucking people anyone’s ever met?

But believe it or not, it wasn’t the military article that was the sharpest knife to the heart.

It was a fucking Facebook post on our school district’s Facebook page from just three fucking weeks ago.

Three weeks ago.

THREE WEEKS AGO.

Not even a month ago.

This is breaking news.

This isn’t the Military Times archive.
This is in real time.

Two assholes — that’s all I can see when I look at them. Apple Watch, fake nails, giant diamond ring, stupid smiles, holding a stupid check against an ugly American flag backdrop. I don’t know who they are. Never seen them in my life. Their nametags are too small to read.

The caption: “Honoring a hero. Senior Airman Ashton Goodman Scholarship was presented to WCHS. Warren Central alum, who served two tours and traveled 10,000+ miles delivering vital aid. We honor her service & sacrifice in 2009. Her legacy continues to inspire the next generation of Warriors.”

This pisses me off to no end. Fifteen years for them to realize you joined the Air Force to pay for college? Dead before you even finished the freshman courses. Guess someone else can be saved from that fate. I should be happy. Like one kid gets the golden ticket with your name on it. Marked safe, just for today, from being blown into pieces so badly that not all of you can be recovered.

One lucky kid gets the American flag check. I want to know how much it’s for and where the money came from, but there’s no details.

Of course there aren’t.

It’s probably for $500 and won’t do shit.

But it got 62 likes and four comments.

One comment: “I love that she is being honored in this way. Ashton was an incredibly sweet girl with tiny freckles and a mischievous little giggle. She was kind to everyone, and I am not at all surprised that this was the job she chose while in the Army. I’ll always feel thankful and blessed to have been one of her teachers.”

Doesn’t that make you as angry as it makes me? Because you were angry and bitter too. Yes, you had freckles and impossibly straight teeth and a huge smile and mischievous little giggles, but you also were outraged by injustice. You would topple displays of rat poison in Walmart and kick cars double-parked. I loved that side of you. You and I laid on the graves of children, yelling up at God, at the cold black sky, in fury. That was my Ashton too.

And my Ashton was sad too. You laid on the cool tile in the downstairs bathroom of your mom’s house, drunk, and told me how you were driving the first vehicle in a convoy in Afghanistan — the first tour, the one you didn’t die during — and how there was a little kid standing in the middle of the road in front of you. Dirty face. Holey clothes. Couldn’t have been older than seven.

You asked the commander sitting in the passenger seat what to do, even though you already knew the protocol. Then he said it flat and direct: “Speed up, don’t stop.”

And you did. Because insurgents would send kids out to stop convoys, then attack.

You knew: It was this kid or the whole group of you.

I saw how your eyes squeezed shut as you described running over that kid and how it felt like a speed bump. How speed bumps now made you cry. How seconds later, someone on the radio said, “WOO weee we must have hit a helluva goat.”

But that’s okay. Because now you get 62 likes and four comments, and one of them is a teacher SOOOOOO thankful and blessed to have been one of your teachers. Wonder how thankful and blessed she is for the kids she taught who didn’t die. 

Nobody at Warren Township mailed me a check for carrying this around fifteen years.

She didn’t even know you were in the Air Force, not the Army. Or that you were the third generation of women in your family to join the Air Force. Or that you didn’t “choose” that job — you really thought you were going to be an airplane mechanic because that’s what the recruiters told you when you signed.

I know because I was there. I was holding your hand as you told me how excited you were and how safe you would be. You wouldn’t ever see action, just engines and rotors and grease, and your college would be paid for.

But it’s all fucking lies. And there are grids and grids of photos of kids promised engines and rotors and college money.

And behind each of those photos is some stupid, sad bitch like me still crying and hurt by it all.

mountain mama

This must be how snakes feel just after shedding their old skins. All that itchiness from before—cracked, dry, peeling away—and underneath, I was soft, pale, fresh to the world. Tender as a baby’s fontanel.

It was there. We met halfway in the parking lot. Not really. Stick with me—this is a rough and clunky metaphor. We met halfway in a parking lot like divorced parents handing off the kid.

You, too, had shed the old skin. Your belly was soft, tender, pink. Tiny blood vessels coursed below.

It was here you said, “This is the only time I ever really talk to you. When I’m on this truth-serum stuff.”

It was the truth. Then you asked me where I wanted to move. But I couldn’t name a place. Then you grew stern: “In the future, when you are old and can live anywhere before you die, look around. What does that look like?”

I saw trees. Forests. Maybe mountains. Not too big a city. Maybe a medium-sized town. But with culture—civic theater, an orchestra.

“You find that in a college town. Have you been to West Virginia? Driven where Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia meet? There’s Huntington, West Virginia. Marshall University is there.”

I closed my eyes and imagined the geographical threesome. “Yes! I have!”

I recounted a trip to West Virginia. To see an Ani DiFranco show with my best friend—the one now dead. We drove through the mountains. Stopped on a peak to watch stars. Got tattoos before the show. That one. On my hip. You know?

Now we—you and I—our bare, new snake-bellies were touching. So smooth, our skin now. Not rough and tough, not hurting each other anymore.

You said, “You know it’s cheap to live there? We could buy a house in cash. One you’ll never need to make a mortgage payment on when I die. The leftover from the sale of our current place... go on a nice trip, and the rest in savings.”

Yessssssss. Yessssssssssss.

This is a place our new skins can breathe until they get too tight and itchy again someday.

if I was an oversharing YouTuber I would have a video titled "Were we in love or am I autistic and my special interest is a dead girl?"....that's a joke ....because everyone on the internet claims to be autistic.

Maybe it’s the summer solstice tomorrow,

But tonight, I needed to wear your clothes—

The shirt and pants I now own. I needed

Something tangible of you. Because with

Your life so short, and our time even shorter,

I can’t remember how much I embellished—

My own memory, an unreliable narrator.

But the question always remains: how much?

This shirt, I saw you buy at the concert.

I saw you wear it. I have a photo of us,

Next to each other, smiling—you in this shirt.

That is a real memory. Nothing about it

Is overdramatic or romantic. But I kept the shirt.

Nineteen years after the concert.

And sixteen years after you died.

I even have the shirt I bought that night.

I wear them both,

In this life I’ve made—one I know

You would’ve liked.

This life I’ve had to live without you,

Except for the shirt and pants I wear right now.

Then again,

Maybe if you had lived, we wouldn’t even be friends.

My memory—the revisionist.

Before You Meet Her, I Have to Warn You

Listen—please. I’m from the future. I don’t have much time.

You’ll meet a girl. Pretty. She once won a beautiful baby contest at a mall. Her hair flows all the way down her back. She wears it loose, in a low ponytail, or in that single loop girls do. Never dyed, never straightened, never curled. It’s virgin hair—and so is she, when you meet her.

At sixteen, she’ll call an ex-boyfriend to come over. Her only reason: it was time.

Her teeth are even straighter than her hair—braces once, long gone. She speaks in T-shirts: Happy Bunny slogans, Metallica, Marilyn Manson, Tool. They’re either skin-tight or swallowed-whole oversized. Her pants? Always baggy. You’ll learn she’s insecure about her hips—always hiding, always deflecting. Swimming in board shorts and a string bikini top, she pulls at the fabric. Unsure about her ass. Or her chin. There's a little dimple she calls a “butt chin,” but really, it’s just a cute dimple. You’ll press your thumb to it.

She has a brother she calls “Beef” or “Meat.” Never his real name. In time, you'll call him that too.

Her stepmom works at an occult shop. Once, you’ll go together. Crystal balls. Tarot cards. Dried herbs in glass jars. You’ll buy a green stone ring.

This girl you’ll meet will be vegetarian, then pescatarian, then back to meat again.

The house is a zoo: cats, hamsters, spiders, birds. A parrot named Jakken-Bakken that sings “PoooooooooooooooOooooop” when it poops. You’ll try not to laugh, but you will. Every time.

Also at her house, there’s only milk, tap water, and canned Diet Coke. A whole fridge shelf for the cans. You’ll notice no one drinks the water. Or the milk. “A drink” always means Diet Coke.

There’s a thick pink scar down her right foot, from toe to ankle. Yet she walks with confidence. She eats green peppers straight from the plant, unwashed. Whole. Crunches seeds like bones. Eats ramen dry—crushed in the bag with the seasoning shaken in. She’s chill like rivers are chill—and you’ll wade in deep enough to drown.

Only eyeliner and mascara. Naturally pretty. Never boy-crazy, but she almost always has a boyfriend. Like the twenty keychains on her belt loop, most of them are decorative.

She finds you funny. Laughs every time you mess up. Thinks it’s all an on-purpose joke. You don’t ever correct her.

You’ll be best friends. Inseparable. Your families will vacation together, do joint Christmases. You’ll get drunk for the first time together. First tattoos, too. You'll go Downtown. Walk the canal. Take off your shoes. Stick your bare feet in the dirty water. Fish will nibble your toes. Each fish will soon have a name. You’ll sneak into cemeteries at night and lie on baby graves, staring up at the sky, asking questions no one answers. You’ll share concerts, showers, beds. Your lives will braid together like her wet hair.

Listen to me. I’m from the future. And this is an important warning.

When you meet her, she wants to become a pilot—but she has astigmatism. Maybe an airplane mechanic. When she tells you this, she’s never even been on a plane.

Her first flight, she’ll be sitting next to you. She’ll narrate every sound, every rattle and shift:

“That’s the wheels going up.”

“That’s the flap they move to turn.”

That trip, she’ll see the ocean for the first time. You’ll be there, watching her run barefoot into the waves, scar glinting pink against the salt.

Her next flight will be to the Middle East—

As a truck driver in the Air Force. Nails perfect shooting marks. Wears her hair in a regulation bun and writes letters home on loose-leaf paper that smells faintly of smoke.

She’ll die on Memorial Day. Afghanistan. A bomb. A quick death, painless—at least that’s what they’ll say. She’ll be 22. There won’t be much of the body left.

---

I don’t mean to upset you. I’m here to warn you.

Run toward this heartbreak. Don’t flinch. Don’t hesitate.

Every minute will be worth it. Just to know her.

This will happen. It has to happen.

I wanted to warn you.

I know how it ends—because I lived it.

So please: treasure every moment.

ode to the tough, the unruly, the too-loud, the dandelion girls

“Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is.”  -Oscar Wilde

The only line between a flower and a weed
is judgment.

And I—judge, jury, executioner—
preside over the wild court of my mind.

In death, a dandelion grows
bunny-soft fur—gentle gifts
you could fill a pillow with.

Sleep. Rest.
But instead, we blow it to the wind,
selfish—turning their death into our wishes.

A maybe, a what if that never fails—
it bends, it morphs, it floats
into whatever I need it to be.
The dead don’t disappoint.
They shift, reshape,
become whatever I crave
right now.

Death is a seed
planted into the dirt,
rubbed from the corner of my eye
when I wake up, watered in
yesterday's tears.

But alive?
It was better.
The fucking best.

A riot of yellow grins,
spirals of lion manes.
Growing!
    Everywhere!
            Anywhere!
Sprouting in lawns,
gardens, gutters,
sidewalk cracks,
asphalt parking lots.

Do you know how tough
a flower must be
to grow through cement?

Pretty and hard,
like ballerina toes—
bloody, calloused,
but full of grace.

Like a cowgirl
shooting stars from her boots.

Like best friends sharing clothes.

Like a tombstone photo of a girl
mid-laugh, face soaked from 
a  water-balloon fight—
Put into the ground too young.

Dandelion.
Not a weed.
Not a flower.
It’s medicine.

Drink it down—
the tea licks your liver,
clears your kidneys,
soothes your heartache.

Take it every day,
until my seeds drift
on a child’s breath.
Your wish becomes my command.

No Need to Label

I only wear long sleeves now,  

because when strangers point to your name  

on my arm, they ask, "Who's that?"  

I say, "My dead best friend."  

For lack of a better word.  

I've tried companion, confidant, partner,  

heart, soul—  

none of these fit.  

I could try another language—  

compadre, chica, comrade—  

but none are the truth.  

What word could capture  

how I feel you speaking from the marrow  

in my bones, how you gently squeeze  

my kidneys, reminding me to drink,  

and how your spirit possesses my body  

with quiet strength when I'm scared?  

I’ll leave it as silence,  between good friends, 

keep my arms covered, so no one asks, 

and I don’t try to explain—  

She is surviving a lightning strike

to the head, once-in-a-lifetime jolt,

that no one else could ever grasp,

so I spend the rest of my life chasing

the memory, hoping to feel it again.

better in hindsight

consider the fall

off the cliff, off the cuff,

like old, faded tattoos,

feathered letters blending.

time blurs—

past, present, future,

not clear dots but ripples

in a man-made lake,

like a man-made diamond,

too perfect to be real.

nearly a decade and a half,

I remember the dead,

pristine, flawless,

clarity immaculate,

while my skin and body

and mind are a waning

moon beside a comet,

tails touching,

morphing into a

cosmic body that doesn’t exist

except for here.

would you shirk away from me?

To know that nothing in my life
is meaningless. Like my outfit today.

It’s all threads weaving my cells together.

These pants, remnants of my dead friend,

just 14 years since new. This sweatshirt—
my dead mom's, older than I am.
These socks, the first name-brand pair
I ever owned, bought at Costco.
A phone filled with numbers I’ll never call.
Eyeglasses that reflect a me I have not yet been,
crafted, it seems, by a celeb
who shares this girl’s name. 

Even these shoes. A brand my favorite singer

used to wear two, no three, decades ago.

I don't do aesthetic or fashion or trends.

I only live my history over and over again.

ginger ale

Pop open another ginger ale—

Golden and bright,

Effervescent like high school love,

Friendship paraded on the beach—

You in long shorts and bikini top,

While I can’t recall what I wore,

Or if I was even there,

Because my memory is you,

Only you.

We will never be as young

As we were then.

And you will never grow old

As I will. As I will

Keep a list of everything new

You would have loved

If you had not died and 

I drink it in

To soothe my aching heart

Like ginger ale.

June 14th, 2024

Today would've been her birthday.

      She would've been 37.

I remember because Flag Day

      and she was so patriotic.

But it's not her birthday anymore

      And she won't turn 37.

Where is her country now

       when the solder is down?

memorial day 2024

Another Memorial Day poem- this time the year is so strange, so future, I am taken aback.  Jupiter is entering Gemini hasn't been here in 12 years. Did you know that 15 years ago when you died Jupiter appeared close to Neptune? I don't know how often that happens but it seemed special. Just as it still feels so rare and soul crushing to be without you. Yet, there are thousands of girls in love and just not aware, till their soulmate is killed in a country than hasn't ever known peace and still doesn't (what even is peace? It feels fiction) and us girls don't want to "remember the reason for the holiday" because it was all so senseless to begin with. You should have been home; you should have been home with me. But instead let's send more children to be killed. It will be different this time. Isn't insanity doing the same thing and expecting different results? I am beginning to believe governments know the end but don't care  Parade. Parade. Senators and companies don't know love. Give me a fucking parade. That's a nice uniform to die in. Perfect for a night out on the town. Might get blown up later. Might not find all the parts. We only buried half of you. Barbeque. Yum. Sales. Memorial Day Sales. 25% off crying fits. Buy me some stuff and eat and let's pretend this is normal and not horrific and my grief isn't a teenager crying still. After all, someone is making money and there's a fresh war brewing catty corner from where the U.S. military left half of you. Of all your pranks, dying on Memorial Day 2009 was a hurtful one. I don't write every Memorial Day but I do rewrite too many.

never say goodbye.

              burning rose petals into candle wax

13 year old girls become 36 year old women

                love continues to take on new forms
i'm drinking out that cup you gave me

you now have cheekbones of an angel

i can still hear how sharp

and high you sounded

never high a day in your life

but for next to me.

reality shifting with the full moon

Too old for it to be schizophrenia

             though entirely possible with my genes-

Yet my heartache for her could only

be taunting visions, hallucinations,

tormenting my tattered mind.

Again, alone in silent fight

[visions be damned]

my demon just her sweet

pinkie toe in my mouth.

This little piggy went crazy 

              wee wee wee 

              all the way to my home

              to her grave

              I must go.

my haunted tongue can barely speak.

unfiltered brain stream (apple juice)

I used to fear that I was incapable of love but now I'm scared I love too much. Too intense. Too quick. To wild. Too loud. Too much. I'm still in love with a girl I never kissed who died over 14 years ago. Her death a middle schooler. I can look up my dad and my second boyfriend on the same offender registry. Guess Daddy's doing better cause he got a home. But the guy I lost my virginity to was last seen in the Pep Boys parking lot. I'm a witch. A literary witch. My words so powerful all other words fall flat on the floor. A pancake the dog ate. I had a cousin who set himself on fire while driving a car. I had a boyfriend who's stepdad rented a car and drove to the Grand Canyon and shot himself. I am loyal and caring. I stayed with him another year. Second fiddle to another girl. They fell in love in Russia and are now married and still together. It could have been mine, but it wasn't the right season. It wasn't the right time. I wasn't ripe.

I can smell my armpit. I'm disgusting. I bought dragons blood soap from the store. I'm psychic. I know that sounds crazy. I know I sound crazy. My cards fortold this year. I knew it would come to this. I'm sinking in the sand I was born in. I crawled out my egg shell yesterday. That's why I've been googling "real Appalachian magic spell soap" but I can't tell what's genuine. This Publix goatmilk soap smelled like Whole Foods. It will work. I needed it to commence my vision.  

P.s. can you believe Amazon and Whole Foods partnered? It's like Trump as President. Everything's a farce. I'm scared of the direction modern entertainment is going.

But the soap. So I want to wash away my human shell. I'd be a good worker bee. I could serve a queen. I could be an ant building mounds. Termite chewing houses. Bird in the stream. We need to run away. It's sounds crazy. I sound crazy. But it was fortold this would happen. We have to run away to the forest or meadows. By a lake. Near a beach with smooth rocks. But, again, I believe there is the right time, a right pace, a right space. We will need a code word. So we can signal when it's time to run. We can whisper "Winnebago" or you might shout "Pizza rolls" with a wink or I just order apple juice. Off we go. This is how it's intended. 

I accidentally deleted a long message. I can't recover it. It wasn't meant to be. But I have seen the future. I've seen my future. I should have been a teen mom, I should have stayed an addict, I should have been dead by now. But I'm not. I'm not. I put faith into a box and jar and My future changed. My God doesn't have zip codes, but he does have hoes in different area codes. I love that Usher is performing the Super Bowl show. I will watch it but not live. We don't watch things live anymore. It's on OUR time and OUR pace....it's not the right time or the right place. When I was a kid, I wanted Usher's song "Nice and Slow" to be my real life. What if it was seven o'clock on the dot and I was in my drop top crusin' the streets? Would you be a real sweet pretty thing waiting for me? Is that why I cried when I sang along during my drive home? It's that part "I've been waitin' for this for so long."

Imagine my old crush advising me on my new crush. One of them is fucking her ex-boyfriend and the other is a vision. Venus de Milo. Perfection. But she's insecure. So am I. Isn't that all girls? I used to hate how I looked. I sometimes still do. That's why we must runaway. I can see us now. We are laughing. We are picking blueberries from the backyard. You wipe a dirt covered finger across my face. We kiss. Taste dirt in our spit. I foresaw it all. I like pretty soft things. That's why I like you. You are velvet. You are lace. You are pastels fuzzy on the eyes. Plush. I wish to squish, squish, squish us through a hole into another world. 

Only female mosquitos drink blood. It's vital to reproduction. Take up arms, ladies! I sacrifice for our sisterkin and their kin. I am a womb. I am a frilled sack lying on the ground. A bulb. Bursting forth. Spring has sprung in sideways snow. That's an inside story with a dead girl. It's on my body forever. I havent been this inspired since her. You are sparking me alive. My soul is not dead. Society cannot kill it. I will folic. I will be with the deer. I will waddle with ducks. And you will be there.

Ok, we are back. I'm seeing us in the future.

You will know all the references. I will know why you are speakeasy and porcelain. You're a doll. A cherub. I am bowing before a goddess. Round eyes. Our home. Our hive. Not a royal "our" but a gollum "our." Our precious. I'm cringe. (Caution! Pull back. Don't be weird. Don't be a creep.) I sometimes I drink out of the milk carton. It tastes better with rebellion. I used to drink alcohol. I hated myself. I got so fearful this weekend. I thought maybe you encountered the man I woke up next to the morning I found out she was dead. The dead girl I never kissed. So I googled and googled and he's right where I left him. There's a chance you met him. There's a chance you might meet him. I'm disgusted by society. We have to run away. When the time is right. We could picnic in the wild flowers. I bring you cornflowers and black eyed susans. I bring pastry puffs. I make a quilt, we spread it on the ground. I bring honeycomb. Suck the sweetness out. 

I will make a different kind of cookie each week. We will be friends with our mole and vole neighbors. I lay on the compost heap and you lie on top and we will sink in the soil. I am a bulb planted in fall. You are a hummingbird. I already know what you'll love. It is what I love. We lie on a married couple's graves and see if their soul commune with ours. Go to the library and look up their obituaries. Shed them at the end of the day like I shed my bathrobe. I have a satin bath robe. I think you'd love how it feels. 

But first! I bathe. I wash myself with dragons blood soap I bought at the store. It will work. I will cast a spell. Cast a spell that when it is the right time, the right pace, the right space, we will runaway together. To the middle of the fairy flight paths and coyote trails. Have tea. Proper afternoon tea. I will grow you tea. I will make cookies. Soup from scratch. One of the pumpkins is ripe. Can you tomatos. Peel you an orange. Take a bite. Wrestle with rabbits. Nap in the sun. I will love too much. Too hard. Too loud. Too wild. 

It's really for the best we have a code word. Let's keep it secret. It's not time yet. Lobster. Sprinkles. Zazzle. Zoots. If you want. If you want it too. But I've seen the future and it was you.

Next full moon whisper the code word to her. The moon and I talk all the time. She'll let me know.

My words are too powerful. I'm a literary witch. I need my dragons blood bath and put on my satin robe and then someday a word will float to my ear off the full moon's lips.

And we will slip, folded in-between awake and dreaming together. Butter between the biscuit flakes.

dandelion

Bled thru my pants today

and it made me think of you

how you'd see it feminist

You'd yell "Fuck yeah!" 

and make it so cool.

All these years without you

I don't know what's real

between the things we did

and the things we hoped to do

and the things we never will do.

Did I imagine you curled

in the bathroom cabinet alone

or was it drunken mirage?

Were your favorite flowers dandelions

and did we read the Vagina Monologues

aloud in Chicago where we named ours-

our vaginas, Sam and Sue?

Or were you a dandelion

intrepid sunny medicinal weed, 

granting my wishes with your

dead petals, curing me with your leaf?

That's highschool sweetheart.

Did we really share that much?

I miss you,

my gorgeous Gemini girl,

two twin souls, you were both.

Yin, I see you bite into pepper green

still dirty from your mother's garden.

Yang, I watch you cock a gun,

sure and steady explaining it all.

Take charge, as I imagined you

were on the battlefield,

even if you were just just a sensitive girl

when it was just us two alone.

shower thoughts

Funny, how I know you masturbated 

lying on your belly, only way to get

the pressure just right. And know

your face and eyes on your first

plane ride, you told me what each 

sound was - 'that's the landing gear.'

Even now, I can feel your hair,

thin and long and painfully straight,

and how you brushed it, right hand,

ripping through it fast, and know

how you want held when you cry.

Yet, I will never know your kiss,

or how your tattoos taste, or feel

(each one I have memorized)

many made with me beside, chatting.

Never wanted to know how much I love you,

but I am glad to know I can love.

I still wear your sweatpants

I still wear year sweat pants.

They were brand new, but,

for you, no longer of use.

Your mom called me over.

Boxes. In boxes. 

Not the bags I'm used to.

That's something you 

only learn from experience.

The Air Force will box and label

and ship all your stuff to your family.

Did the postman know he delivered

a dead girl's stuff to her mom?

I just wanted a few sentimental

tokens, amulets, icons of my memory.

A scrapbook but make it fashion.

But your mom insisting I take it all.

So your sweatpants, brand new, never worn,

became mine, now fourteen years.

Your sweat pants became:

My sweat pants.

My sleep pants.

My sick pants.

My drunk pants.

My sober pants.

My first-marriage pants.

My second-marriage pants.

My grad school pants.

My stained pants.

My holey pants.

My holy pants.

But they were still your sweat pants.

I put you on. Not you, your kabuki mask.

You possessed my body. You haunted my mind.

You made these holes and these stains.

And we merged.

So bury me in your sweat pants,

faded logo on the hip, holes, paint smear,

perma-dirt and exhausted elastic,

so I can still wear your sweat pants

when I join you.

strongly worded letter to the English language

Why are the words 'within' and

'without' so vastly different?

Logic would say they operate like 

'inside' and 'outside'.

Should be obvious.

See 'inside' and 'within' 

are synonyms and

'inside' and 'outside'

are antonyms, so

'outside' and 'without'

should be synonyms too.

It's math, It's logic,

It's not your strong suit.

Perhaps this helps.

"If I am within her, I am inside her."

"If I am without her, I am outside her."

This would make sense.

But that's not how you roll.

You made confusing meanings

so I can be 'within' her and 'inside' her, 

But when I'm 'without,' her, I'm not just 'outside' her,

She not even here, for myself, or others,

not even for her own pleasure or doing.

So different. No hope of respite.

'Within' her, 'Inside' her, I'd have a bed at night.

'Outside' her, the hope of sleep tomorrow.

But 'without' her? There never was sleep,

No blankets, no pillows, nothing was real.

Nostalgia fades so much faster on a past

you are trying to remember. 

So in summary:

Inside=Within

Outside ≠ Without 

Fix it.

Respectfully,

Caroline

true love

blood blister

palm hand

twinpeak scabs

love was seeing you

feet in the sand

first time at the beach

first look at the ocean

all those firsts

you shared with me

open, split open,

wide and supple,

as was the sky

gulls could fly 

in all that first

I bore witness.

only one first

and one last.

for me, right now,

both are you.

head house

Today's your birthday

or your day of birth

as you would say.

could be, would be 36

but you're a ghost instead.

You just living in my brain,

hippocampus home with

pituitary porch and all the

sunflowers and dandelions

we can dream up.