the doctors told him he d be gone by now his lungs full of blankets burnt black and bound he buried his family in the backyard flooded the basement filled it up with tar we borrowed their old clothes and then we undressed we stole a trampoline and made it our mattress and slept with all the houselights on waiting for them to come home and slept with all the houselights on waiting for them to come home he said it s so much easier to believe in nothing it s so easy to wait impatiently to die he pulled his pants around his ankles and he showed me all the places he went purple cause he held too hard his own skin cause no one else would touch him and i mothered him beastly and we shared our severed head dreams i held him where the sickness was and i nursed him through the night and i nursed him through the night and we stayed that way all night 1