danny kerry it is around this time of year when i begin to think of you again, and no wonder why, since your birthday is right around the corner. during our long periods of silence, especially in the beginning, i always felt tempted to call you or at least text a simple happy_birthday, but then would realize it was more for me than for you. and there was that discomfort of wondering whether you were repulsed or relieved by my words. some years it was easy to let that day slip quietly by. i still woke up Knowing, but maybe i was mad at you, or for that period of time i was content in my life and with myself and i was tired of hating you or missing you. or other times i missed you too much to risk the embarrassment of radio_silence, and i wanted but also didn't want to know who was trying to celebrate your birthday with you--you never liked birthdays--and were you grieving the passing of another year or too happy to even notice your aging? after you died there was the obvious sadness and confusion and loathing and regret and relief but also shame when she came back around, saying all these things about you that weren't true, talking about how close you'd been when i knew you hated her. i remember so clearly the story you told me about her cornering you in the boy's bathroom and telling you how much she liked your poetry, and how creeped out you were. i remember no one really liked her but no one could explain why. later i read a tangled web of nonsense online she'd written about you and i saw myself in it, not named but explicitly described, her disdain or maybe it was jealousy though she didn't know me. she got my number from someone else. i hesitated to pick up the phone. i was uncharacteristically cold and unfriendly. her voice was too smooth, oily. when she asked for your birthday my bitterness reached a new pitch and i'll admit i hesitated before telling her. it felt like a secret i was giving away. she was surprised to know she was older. i still hate her, even more after learning she got your birth and death dates tattooed onto her wrist in courier bold, though i know there is no competing in mourning. 210907 ... tender square i hate the aggressive grief tattooing phenomenon, it's bizarre. after my grandmother died, one of my sisters asked for some of her ashes. my parents thought she was going to put it in a necklace or something so they gave it to her. instead, she got a tattoo in honor of grandma and the artist mixed in her ashes with the ink. it just makes me want to throw up my hands and say "you win, you loved her the most." 210907 ... kerry i dreamed that i was standing on a rocky beach--i wasn't alone, but i wasn't with you--and we were watching the waves come in. the water was deep blue and the waves were opening so tall and wide like sails, frothed and ruffled at the ends. The ocean crashed down into itself, thunderous, like it was chewing on the water. it overspills... it's high tide, it crawls a little further up every time, creeping, grasping, pursuing. i didn't think about you for most of the day. i felt energetic, had some toast with cream cheese and did house things, walked the dogs. but later when i mentioned you--now i think i'm beginning to understand the thinking behind that, mentioning you, though i wish i hadn't--it was something some trivial and fleeting, but i remembered. happy 35th birthday. i was at the grocery store trying to decide which peanut butter to buy when i got a text about some memorial for you. a "grief circle." on zoom. the text was from my high school english teacher, apologizing if i'd been invited to it. i responded that it didn't matter because i'd blocked the person who organized it, the woman who when we were in high school, it turns out, was obsessed with you and loathed me, who is living on the fuel of some memories from a summer spent at "nerd camp" at the college in valdosta. well, she can look at her wrist and see your birthday and some Spoon lyrics for the rest of her life, having learned your birthday after your death? joy said "it would've been funny if you gave her the wrong day." we both laughed. then we agreed it wasn't all that funny, it was all pathetic. we parted ways and became different people so i don't know what you would have done on your birthday. but you never really wanted to do much. maybe go to dinner at someplace nicer than usual. you might put on a blazer, some snazzy shoes. in athens we went into a men's shoe store and you tried on so many hi-tops and oxfords in all colors and some with very pointy toes and some with velcro. i'm sure i have some pictures still that i took of us in there. you were wearing those shoes that looked like rubber bananas. it's hard not to get a little sentimental. i remember exactly where we were sitting and how you smelled the first time we kissed. i remember the frayed knees of your corduroys and your off-white hi-top chucks. you gave me your velvets underground t-shirt. i wish i hadn't given it back. i wonder if i was as important to you as you are to me. it doesn't, shouldn't, matter. it's too bad you aren't here. i know for sure i would have called you the last time i was in town. it was such a terrible visit. i would've done any kind of impulsive thing, and i manage to at least drive past you whenever i go home to my parents.' i saw you walking to the bank decked out in some monochromatic dark yellowish outfit, slim sweater and bellbottoms, very 70s. i was disappointed when you told me you'd stopped writing. i was kind of crushed, actually. i just told you it was a shame. now i understand better. if you'd told me now, i would have just commiserated. i get it. (still, surely you wrote something? did you hide it? leave it with someone?) i hope you liked your cake. i know you didn't get what you wanted. 210912 ... kerry i heard a rumor you'd recently broken off an engagement. i heard it from an unreliable source, though, so i don't know for sure. but i imagine there is someone you left behind, who is wondering what she could have done or said differently, what warning signs did she miss, etc. i wonder what she's like, what she's going to do now. if she was surprised. i feel awful for her but i'm glad it wasn't me. if i ignore perhaps half of my memories of you, then i can totally see why someone would want to marry you. wake up next to you, learn your quirks. i wanted that, sometimes. (eventually.) i can see why she would find you intoxicating, it may be the strange combination of bitter cynicism and goofiness. you weren't slapstick, but you had these voices you did that were absurd, mocking, squawking, unexpected. and there's the unpretentious writer guy thing. i guess people are into that.some girl hit on you at the airport. and another at the book nook. but you were a horrible driver, people constantly honking at us. pulled over a couple of times. but there was that other afternoon i wss driving you home in my mom's car and we were at this notoriously long red light making out and my foot slipped off the brake and i rear-ended the car in front of me. but it was more of a tap. letters_to_the_dead 210912 ... kerry i was walking to the train station at walnut and locust hopping over slippery trolley tracks and skipping past cobblestone alleys and it was misting and i was feeling smug about only needing a parka, as if i were still in the PNW where umbrellas are for wimps-- had a little ball of nicotine gum tucked into one cheek, wearing yellow sneakers you’d probably like now that i think about it, listening to kurt vile: “shame chamber.” at the corner waiting to cross i glanced to my right and i thought it was you but only for a moment, and the you that wasn’t you smiled at me and instead of smiling back i looked away. it wasn’t quite your smile, too naive, too humble, but close enough to startle me and make me wish i could forget you completely. the not-you was your height, your build, had your thick hair, but could never be you not only because of the obvious but because you would never wear scrubs that’s what your father wanted, so typical you said, wants me to be a doctor. what would you do with poetry besides go on food stamps and die alone, some husk of a man, too feminine, that was the idea. but i don’t think you’d have made a good doctor. you were too cynical. i turned up the volume and pulled up my hood. “everyone’s sayin i should probably give up / and hey, i wouldn’t want to waste no time / i couldn’t even look myself in the mirror / then again, why would i?” there was a time when i couldn’t look in the mirror, that bedroom was dark, blackout curtains always closed and rental carpet felt dirty no matter how much cleaning i did. i feel like a dog with an itch in its ear, shaking my head furiously as if i could shed you there are times when i lie on my bed and my skull has too much clutter and if only i could pull some of it out, empty the trash they aren’t voices (i’m not crazy right?) but for sure presences. i close my eyes and push my face into the pillow and wish all of it would just hush. when i was sleeping on the pull-out in the basement we whispered on the phone for hours, about everything--talked about books, play-fought about whether the rolling_stones were any good or not (consensus--pro pre 70s stones), what we didn’t know about each other, what we wanted to do together. i would have gladly cracked open my skull and let you inside. it’s only the second day but i already don’t feel at home in an office, no one else seems disturbed by the sameness of all the rooms and hallways and i keep getting lost, and i know they think i am strange--they say you like to move around, you like to walk huh they wear these looks of horror at the words “transfer” and “street outreach” but i am fidgety and can’t sit still and i need faces not numbers and screens and the sound of a ringing phone makes me grit my teeth you didn’t make me feel strange. bad sometimes, sad sometimes, but not foreign. once i was cutting your hair and we were both looking in the mirror together and you said you trusted me, turns out you shouldn’t have—at least not with scissors. should i trust myself if i am still seeing you around me? it was easier to forget you when i knew where you were. 211005 ... kerry melissa, your melissa, is in hawaii now. i think she is lonely out there. she collected shells and glued them to a tiny picture frame and sent it to me all the way from her island. i sent her, among other things, a thc patch. put it on your foot and go walk on a volcano or something, i wrote in the card, put it on your foot and write another poem. i got a text from her the other day saying "that patch was like a channel to Buddha." i think you would like our correspondence, the strange objects landing in our mailboxes. she texted me on the anniversary of your death, didn't mention you, but you must have been on her mind. i think of my old students back when i thought i wanted to teach, i imagine a kid like you coming to my room before school crying, needing someone to convince them to stick around. could i have done that for you like she did? could i have taken you out for greek food and held your hand, watching you grieve? it's so foolish to keep wondering where you are. you are nowhere and everywhere, but not gone. pavement and guided by voices pop up on my spotify and i realize you're still lurking. there must a siren song playing that only you can hear. i'm waiting for you to die again. it's not destruction, it's release. i don't remember talking to you about death except once in your car, when you told me i wasn't allowed to die first. sorry, baby. 211111 ... kerry for fuck's sake. should be: when i told you you weren't allowed... slow down, damn hands! 211111 ... kerry i'd always see you in the same places. usually you didn't see me--you were walking with your head high, chest out, on some mission. my stomach would flip and my heart would cramp. i'd search for your thick black hair and round gandhi glasses, aquiline nose. i used to tell you how much i loved your nose, and you'd just laugh, tell me how strange i am, but that you like it. i looked for you again when we were hurtling down wylie street in reynoldstown. i used to live nearby, in a shitty apartment with dirty carpet and broken blinds. it wasn't until we passed the house where i dropped you off (the last time i saw you), the house where you died, that i realized i have to stop searching. 211202 ... kerry the more time passes the more surprised i am whenever you slip into my stream of thought, into conversations. it seemed like i finally had a grip on when we could and couldn’t speak–it turned out that with one of us in this world and one of us elsewhere, i could finally establish rules and boundaries. today i told someone about the first time you said you loved me, a story i’d never told out loud before, and in the telling it became clear to me that it was a gift and an honor, not just your love but also the feeling of being needed and having the ability to comfort. maybe i’d never really felt needed before. this auspicious beginning for us–i managed to ignore it at the time. i decided it was the sentiment, and not the context, that mattered. today before i opened my mouth i stopped and asked myself (yet again) if i’m crazy, if i’m obsessed, but i think it’s more that there’s still so much dust and ash, both yours and mine, and if i don’t clear it away i’ll choke on it. 211214 ... kerry you keep coming to me in my sleep, making it impossible for me to forget you, which is what i’d like to do. about a week ago you arrived at a celebratory dinner, slid into the booth seat right across from me, looking gloomier than ever. it was dark in the restaurant and even darker in your little corner. the table was too close to me so i nudged it gently toward you, and you silently shoved it back, not acknowledging me. everyone else was laughing, including you, but your laughter was sour and shrill and sarcastic. before the food even came it was someone’s idea to leave. i came along, silent in the back seat of jon’s car. we decided to go to your house, though in the car jon was warning us how creepy it was there. it was like we didn’t have a choice–we didn’t, i guess, we were just following the plot of my subconscious. your house was darker than the restaurant. it smelled stale, like mice, like no one had lived there for a long time. there were memories dripping from the walls and i could hear your mother’s voice echoing in the shadows as i climbed the staircase. last night it was dawn and there was still dew on the grass and you were standing in the cold, wearing only swim trunks. you had your arms crossed across your chest and you were rubbing your hands on your shoulders, as if to stop the shivering. i looked at your legs, noticing how small they were. you acted like you didn’t see me, maybe because you didn’t want me to see you like that, cold and small and barely clothed. i would happily leave you behind but you keep reappearing. there’s no significance to this time of year when it comes to the two of us, so why now? 220411 what's it to you? who go blather from