i have been searching for ways to keep you alive that do not kill me, too.

another nightmare last night.

i dreamt i was driving to a store,

at the end of the road,

at the end of the world,

to get what I needed for my survival.

against the odds,

grabbed 2 jugs of water,

and a betta fish

and a goldfish.

i took them so they wouldn’t die in this hell alone.

let me pretend one day someone will care for me this way at the end of our days.

the water would keep me alive,

and i give it to smaller things before myself.

at the end of it all,

i think I would rather die with what’s been abandoned

than live with what abandons.

we were driving down the streets of your childhood in Missouri

you said, “I want a family — I want a husband and to be married again”

I sat holding your blood within me,

knowing when you said you wanted a family,

you meant “not in the form we are”.

politicians fundraise for our lives on other’s tragedy

birds compose a symphony around a corpse,

death formulates an AdSense payout,

legacy family fortunes crust over the labor of children.

if we can both be put to rest

at war within each other,

we can move past the fact that carrying each others’ bodies

in violence of our own

is what makes us ourselves.

I still carry out your bidding against myself,

echoing your name.

i don’t know how else to keep you alive.