.
You were born
subject first and capitalized
like a proper noun
You were a long run-on
and you ran on lines of velocity
across my skin

.
You hit your first comma
when your old man hit a semicolon
Your mother called it a crisis
but at the time you just thought
it meant two of everything:
two houses on the opposite sides of town
more money in your pocket
and a double life to spend it on

Later, you said it felt like
your life was divided and
everything was half of what it should be
I didn't understand;
I had two parents living to-
gether and my hair didn't split at the ends
like yours used to

.
Around you,
I loved enjambment because of the way
you spilled into me
like you required more
than your boundaries allowed
Everything about you was creation:
verses sat in your lungs
waiting to breathe into
chorus
everything you touched
was a finished product

.
I never liked
the finality of death's punctuation
but you're the one who said
let it love you, let it die
like that was supposed to
make loss feel less,
like there were only two steps to mourning
and we all just needed
a song about the rising sun

.
The sun did rise
without you
and you left me sifting in ashes
I never held you in fistfuls,
never thought you could be
summarized in my grip

You should have left me your bones
but
graves are for crying
and you would have none of that
(I should have told you about
all the times I should have cried but didn't)

It's too late
for all the stories
I forgot to tell