I'm still searching for the ones who believe living feels like fire,
Too busy saving the world to fold laundry
A fucking hero complex that carried us far enough into this mess to get through it,
Or so I tell myself.
But I only see ghosts in dreams, and I forgot to ask them
If they would also like to join our congregational dinners,
Instead of just our prayer circles
To save my mother’s life.
So I haunt their cemeteries reading poetry I wrote, and letters that my mother wrote them.
Dear G-d,
A friend asked me yesterday how you like your coffee, when you and I hang out like this.
I never thought to ask.
Because everyone is put together until the moment that they aren’t.
So I pray, and burn the eggs, and wonder why everything I do is a public affair
For just a little while longer.
Scraping the secrets of the world from rush-hour license plates
Certain I can do better.
And beyond the gorgeous, brutal landscape where I once taught children to fight in the snow
Beyond validation stolen from the static on the radio
I see the world I would have changed for her.
Because I speak with memories as often as those ghosts.
And I can make the license plates say anything I want;
Rewriting our destinies with the unused letters
By the side of the road
Time and again.
Because I still believe that living feels like fire,
So meet me there.
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