I Give Thanks

To everything that was
beautiful and to nothing
that hurt. To that lone pink
Carnation that greets me each
time I sit beside the swamp
the poolman neglects, savoring the
addiction to grandma’s pleasure and
elation: a Marlboro Red. To durable, seclusion
prone, parental disconnect; vital signs
enduring the blank pages invisibly
filled with type B-misunderstood
secrets of a malfunctioning bad
seed, a 17-year-old “daddy’s little girl” before
he set out, exiting off life’s restless stage with his
intrinsic, fatherless frenzy. To certain colors of
a finger-painting precedent: colors that mottle
what my sight visualizes. To relentless arguing
with sixteen and its testosterone-driven flavor
of the month. To the troubles of sleeping; pills
never suited insomnia’s number one case
study. To exhausted daily sunup, I hope
he never explores ruins of brain calculating in
golden mines of cataclysmic dejection of
self. To Springsteen being on fire, I fathom never
understanding and that speaks levels of
inhibited, disturbing capacity. To an Israeli-clad
dessert table missing pies fused with pumpkin, turkeys
never coated in tart, cranberry sauce; We are
not Americans, she says. To having been twenty-one, gone
astray and in marvel of what I would
befall. To today, being twenty-six, heightened without
bookends as my insides fall off the bone; emotional distress
is chief fodder for growth. To occupations which indoctrinate
ironic humility in impassive memorization; To poets who
find necessary arrogance in the seventh
heaven of their recollections. To the life I have
secretly treasured yet candidly lived in
fret, I give thanks.