You

You are the person I write my notes to.

You are Requiem and her tumor, You are Dollface and her cancer.

You are the metal I taste when I bite through my lip, You are the talc on my grandmother’s handkerchiefs.

You are the reason I count things twice.

You are luminescent in your defeat, You are the dull ache in my spine.

You are the labored breath of my mother’s asthmatic lungs, You are the years of dust on my father’s old loves.