The Trail Of Tears

This winding road

Through these sprawling hills

Always takes me to what I need second most:

Alcohol.

Some days are good and others

Not so much

But without fail

On this road to alcohol

I always cry.

Yesterday I cried

The least I ever have

But today

I saw

Your car

In the high school parking lot

And I am reminded of the trap I’m in.

North: your job. Your family’s church where you had the funeral. Your house. The coffee shop.

South: the school.

East: Freddy’s, where I learned more about you. Chick-fil-A, where we took you to get out of the house after your brother’s death.

West: the trail of tears.

Right smack dab in the middle: me. My house. The memories.

I wonder what

Your parents tell

Your younger siblings

About me

Am I a monster now to them?

Did you tell them to be wary of me?

I wonder what you tell yourself about me. Maybe it’s nothing at all,

But surely,

Surely.

You tell yourself something.

But maybe that’s me wishing

Maybe that’s just me hoping

Either way I hope I’m engraved in your memory

I hope you feel just as awful as I do when you hear a taylor swift song

Or some shit about republicans.

I hope your body fills to the brim with salt water that burns your every minuscule cut every time you even remotely think of me

I hope the water can’t escape and I hope you build with pressure till you explode

I hope the sea foam clouds your vision and your thoughts

I hope the brine clouds your smell

I hope the water boils and blisters your skin

You see, this is what you do to me.

I’m devastated one second and the next I’m pissed and the next I’m in love with you all over again

I wish for you to fill with the ocean but in truth I’m the one caught in a whirlpool and I keep getting sucked back toward the center every time I make some kind of progress.

At the top: plundering, destroying, raging.

On the edges: devastation, wreckage, catastrophe.

At the bottom: love