and I think
I may be a masochist,
an undervalued trait of mine.

I’m friendless truly and
in one lost picture,
missing in one of my twenty-one moves;
black and white snapshot
of the first rollercoaster.
my father accompanied me,
and recalling when he went too
fast on the jet ski
knocking us both into the water,
two booming laughs,
neither of us really scarred.
it is the drugs that got us,
the suicide,
the dementia,
there’s nothing left.

but I held your hand in earnest
and exchanged a look.
I didn’t hug you during the
pandemic.
I try not to think
of these acts of
care as anything but that
but still inconsolable,
bereft,
heavy cement cracked,
it comes for me as
failure.

1. (sadist)