wreck of a life

it's been
23 years of a car crash in slow motion,
high definition looping on repeat
until you have it memorized.

i have seen this coming for longer
than i have the words to say.

it started with the words i knew:
a first grade vocabulary screaming out,
"i," and "hate," and "you,"
to the girl in the bathroom with the puffed-up eyes,
locked behind a door that her mother keeps pounding on,
begging me to stop hurting the little girl
in the mirror.

i used to hide in small places
and when i was found, cried,
"i wish i had never been born,"
perhaps where other children
might have had other words.

now i hide in small places
and when i am found, cry
because i still don't have other words.

i could pinpoint the instant i knew this car would crash,
and every moment after drowned out in the feeling
of letting all the air out of your lungs and being too tired
to breathe more back in, of

this idea of getting better, being
somehow restored to right when i have only ever been left
staring down the tunnel toward a sleep less small.

only the good die young,
and i have never been enough
of that.

i have never been anything
but a loose-limbed driver behind the wheel of a thrice-flipped car,
celebrating under confetti glass shards, soundless
in anticipation -

no words now.
no words ever again.