19th of June

I am afraid you will leave me in the dirt

With gritty teeth filled with sand

Earth underneath my fingernails as you bury me

Bloody six feet under

Bitter and battered as you left me 365 dreams ago

You will plant flowers atop my grave

And bask in their beauty that is fresher

Than my rotting heart in the soil

My bones will shatter under the weight

Of the memories

Of your breathing

That make up the cracks in my tombstone

Whose epitaph reads like the smiles you sent my way

I am okay with being reborn, but

I am afraid that my broken remains will be resurrected 

When my fractured ears hear the sound of your voice

Above the grass

4th of July

It was just one year ago

Tangled in sheets with salt in my hair

You were so far away

A fleeting thought that knocked a hole in my chest

Like a firework

I was so close to living what haunted me in my dreams

A phantom limb

And you were the long gone arm lost in a battle for freedom

Your voice was like stars on a flag

The stripes

Red as my blood that was

As white as my skin that was

As blue as the veins under my 1776 parchment skin

I told you things felt unnatural

But I wanted to say we were as beautiful as the land our founding fathers built their lives on

We were silent

I wanted to be where you were as fast as I could

Like Washington crossing the Delaware 

My American dream

That rocked me to sleep

As we got off the phone and cried

Under the falling sparks of our nation’s past