fighting fire

most days, 
i find myself trying to decide who it is that i miss; 

was it the boy with the blue guitar, or

the one who smelled like tobacco, 

even the man who hid behind loud engines and guns.

or maybe i miss the one who took without asking, 

the boy whose eyes lost their color

with every new day.

there are those that came and left silently in the night,

nameless masses only alive in the few dark moments i allowed.

there were the few that got close, and the many that got all the way,

entering with no charm, exiting with no consequence.

and for each one that visited, 

i sewed a pocket in my jeans,

sixteen homes with doors that even my tiniest stitches 

couldn’t keep

shut.

 __________________________

i don’t own enough bookmarks to mark the beginning and the end

of each of their chapters, don’t even bother anymore to fill out the blank

pages where they once walked, 

but none of this stops me from

missing them, the ones i never knew, the ones who were afraid,

the ones who feared nothing. 

i miss all the men that i haven’t met, my future pockets, the future scars

that will be mine, and all mine, to keep.

i wonder where they are now, if in the morning, they will remember my name, and everything i gave them that i meant to get back. 

i tell myself there is kindness after the violence, respect after abuse,

rain after fire,

that next time, i will be better at sewing, i will make one pocket strong enough

to keep him there safely, i will rip off all the others that didn’t hold up with time.

i will remember that wherever there is light there will be darkness, 

with power there will always be weakness. where there is gasoline, there will be fire;

and so i pick up my needle, my thread.

and so i put down my match.