Signed, Legally Ryn
Published in Intermission, November 2018
poetry
​
​I thought anything was better than
watching you tear out your IV
and then be velcroed down

while you screamed
you would never
be whole again.

So here I am with my face
wedged up against a milk crate
and this disgustingly rotten and sheetless

mattress where moldy food,
used Q tips, spent cigarette butts, and
a ripped Bible are smashed together

in an ashy mess of mice shit and hair.
No wonder god left.
It’s dangerous here amid the teetering

piles of your unfinished thoughts
and towering mounds of
Real Simple Magazines threatening

to consume me if the rank smell doesn’t kill me first.
The vacuum I bought you is buried under
clothes and Christmas ornaments

still in wrappers and boxes.
When I finally find the prescription bottles
they are full of untouched pills. Again.

Six months’ worth.
This saves me a stop on the
way back to the hospital.

When I see you tomorrow I
think I’ll tell you that I’m not
Mary Kathryn anymore.

Also, you should know
that I don’t blame you.
And I don’t forgive you either.

​Signed,
​Legally Ryn