Reimagined & Re-Alive

It's Friday night & the apartment is as warm

As your cheeks were when we argued,

Glistening with sheens of sweat

Your brother has the same red glow, and after talking to him that one time, I was convinced that I loved him

Only because I saw a bit of you in a bit of him

& melting your facial features together felt better than mixing

My tears with the stew that Mama tried forcing me to eat

Yesterday it was August, and the day before that was May. And then you died, and I'm trying to live again. But how. I spit to God when I speak to you.

My fingers run under the sink’s tap water

They do a little flaccid dance that reminds me of the way

Your bones mixed with mine under the covers…

…But the water is too hot & by the time I realize it

my hands are white and rumpled

Their blisters shatter like little marbles

While Mama pours vodka on my fingers, spitting curses in Russian

She asks me how I could be so careless but

I don't remember if I was being reckless or if I did it on purpose

The kitchen is yellow and damp on Friday nights

It smells like Mama's soup and her hair & the elasticity of her thin hands

That are littered with cooking scars

She looks at me as I look at the 

Lone rose she placed in a clear vase

You know how I've always hated roses,

but this one is black & red & velvety & I imagine it’s what your skin looks like.

Oh Baby.

Your fingers always had the same stubbiness to them as the short knives my father collects

It reminds me of that faint night in the summer when we laughed over my sink, drooling & spitting

& I wondered if this could really be forever.

Because forever felt nice.

And now you're forever 20.

Soon a year will pass and I'll be older than you ever got to be. & we'll both decay

in opposite directions. It's funny how time works.