I’m sipping coffee
thinking about
the one year anniversary of your attempted suicide.
How it almost took you from me
in 3 short minutes.
How the blood dried
in the crevasses
of your nail beds
and filled the spaces
between the chips
of your pink nail polish.
Your blood scattered like galaxies
and stained the floor
of your apartment
and the floor
of my heart.
I can’t scrub the planets
from the fibers there.
When I stood there,
i felt so small.
I wanted it clean.
I wanted you to come home
and feel like
your universe wanted you here
like I knew it did.
But the carpet wouldn’t brighten,
a sick reminder
of what being sick feels like.
Not just for you,
but for me too.
In the hospital, I came and sobbed in the hallway.
I called dad.
I laid on the floor of the waiting room
during your surgery.
I wrote a poem every day.
When I visited,
I drank the coffee and tried to make you smile.
I cried all the way home.
I screamed in the parking lot of a church,
so God would hear me.
It’s been a year,
and your scar
still bleeds to me;
I smell bleach when I see it.
