August first: this is the first time in nine years that I am not sad on her birthday.
you and I are standing under a summer storm
the desert kind that don’t come often enough, but when they do they come hard and fast

If I could write you a goodbye is a poem in my newsest poetry collection, The Worst of Me.

530
It’s too early for phone calls
But I wake up to my phone buzzing

maybe one day august won’t feel like this

August is the hardest month of the year for me. That’s probably what happens when you lose someone you love in that month. Summers don’t really feel the same, but maybe one day, they’ll feel different.

I make love to myself in my apartment on the couch – you want to hear about that, but not

every summer the reaper comes and asks me,
how would you like to die?

one day you’re going to look back and
think goddamn I wish I had that and

nothing feels right at the end of July

no one knew that a few days later you’d be lying in the ICU

hooked up to tubes and a machine that kept you breathing

and now I count August by fives