I N V U

When I say I envy

You, I mean I envy

The choices and chances you had,

Nothing more.  See, love,

I used to say, love,

That the world never stops

For us, that there is no pause

In life's brutal rhythm,

And whatever it throws at us,

Our tired feet must find

Some way to stay in step.

But that wasn't true

For you, was it?

When you fell apart, everything

Ground to a halt—I 

Ground to a halt—

But for every dollar and every

Day spent on your well-being

You couldn't be well.

I never got that opportunity. 

The drums never stopped

Beating for me; throbbing behind

My temples in the space between

Asleep and awake.  I was left to wait

To watch our money run out without

Your income and try to keep

Our roof over my head.

There was no recovery for me

No respite from the hard world

On Daddy's dime.  I never told you:

I couldn't cry for four months after

You left.  Careening on the brink, I wrote

Truth disguised as fiction and fiction

disguised as poetry.  Finally it all poured

Out, sobs and screams and the words

“I love you every damn day—”

I still do, you know, though

Every damn day now your fingerprints

Fade a little more from my skin. 

Once I admitted I was in mourning

I couldn't stop.  I sank deeper into it

With each month.  But still there was

No rest: I had bills to pay and flooded

Apartments to flee: It's not always sunny

Here, no matter what the television says.

Not all of us get to live at a halfway

House in a Florida suburb. 

Every raindrop was another beat,

And I kept my bloody feet dancing

And threw back my head and sang

Sisyphus' song: I embraced

My rugged fate.

But beneath reality's callus

There's still that boy in me

Who drove six hours to take

You dancing on the sand

That night you felt too alien

To face your own senior prom.

I envy the choices and chances

You had.  If you'd given the same

To me, maybe this could have lived.