She writes about specifics

her pen scrapes away at the obvious

and writes about the weather

It's cold out, you could even say cloudy  

high winds chills bite at my cheek

nipping at the fire in my throat

Im screaming on the inside

but my voice is honeysuckle mamas milk, ignorant

she writes about the everyday nothings like he can have it too

she doesn't know how to make him less jealous

how to be the only one who writes back a brother who thinks my choice of pen, paper, stamp color are (all) luxury

she writes like his life depends on her guilty scribbles

her unwritten I'm sorries

her unforgivable weekend that let her forget him

Pretends her days are agony when she forgets where he is

in a cave

lets her mind compartmentalize his existence

between four gray walls

promises pictures, freeze frames of all the memories he's missed

[Click]

Blow out the candles, make a different wish this time

[Click]

Big sis with the baby cradling his body close

he's got the same brown eyes

[Click]

Big brother hasn't finished high school yet,

one more year won't matter wait I didn't mean it like that

[Click]

Send you some money this week?

i'll tell mama, auntie, uncle,

I'm working on it,

they haven't written in a year or two

they're working on it

Click

stop sending your brother so many pictures honey

the men in there haven't seen women in very long time

Oh I'm sorry, I'll stop acting like I want him to remember me

I'm sorry I'll stop acting like I want him to remember me

While you seem comfortable forgetting he ever existed

it doesn't matter what he did

talking about him in past tenses

your was's and had's are like bad letters of recc

NO THANKYOU

I'll ask someone who cares about me and what I stand for

Stamp four I've written him almost everyday this week so far

used to get offended when he didn't reply for a month

couldn't reply for a month

found out later he didn't always have the pen and paper

those things aren't cheap

expensively stupidly missing phone calls because of the weird are code

ring ring

thats me calling back

and a machine (answering)

‘If you are calling securus technologies you may have received a call from a correctional facility

don't call again we won't give them the message that would be just too human’

 

I once asked if I could make him a bracelet

braid some time spent outside pen and paper into knots

and send him the only gift i could afford happy birthday

he said they didn't let that kind of stuff slip through

sympathy is very slippery, can't be too careful

I didn't ask about the inside after that

To me he was at camp

on a trip

visiting a relative

and my letters were his way out

my voice on the other end of the line

his honeysuckle mamas milk

mama wouldn't write him

sister didn't have that kind of money

auntie didn't have that kind of time

but trust me,

they're all working on it