Goodbye friend

Marrow bones                     nothing left
For a bird                              holy smokes
I am so
              Empty.

You are home                      sleeping
Your baby fleas                   creeping.
Bathroom leaks                  seeping.
I lock my room.
i think of
                Leaving.

Kid me would go                                hunting
For big slugs                        trust me
this is so                                loving
I'm showing you                my thing.
We are both                         Texas grown
chiggers climb                    Bruised shinbones
Lizards bake                        On dry limestone.
You grew up poor,
              I grew up hungry.

It was so                                 loving
Sharing our                          sunscreen
Trading our                         small dreams
Revealing I’m                     a weak thing.
You feed me                        cream cheese.
We become                          queer family.
You teach me,
             I can love with BPD.

But we’re smoking           too much weed
I ignore bedbugs              in your sheets
Hating enemies                               you seem to keep
Trusting                                             they're somehow                 bad for me?
Your boyfriend                  explains to me
Sex work and                      its apparent conspiracy.
He thinks OJ                      Simpson should be free.
He asks me to explain
To him
                   Why you scare me.

Bleached are teeth            Dropped in holes.
Nothing left                      for angry worms
Meters deep                      digging through
Cold dark earth,
                empty.



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Cris Iacoponi is a Philadelphia-based poet. She writes on Surviving with a capital S: past and present, trauma and mental illness. She is the co facilitator of the Philly Poetry Workshop out of A-Space community center, and likes pigs.