Dendron

You cut your ties/
felt better off.
Salutations to your son.
Awoke to find you heading out
with your white collar undone.
You placed a bar.
I played a game to see
how low that I could go.
We developed mental pictures
and we're following our fathers
down the drain.

Do you recall
the imagery from when
I drove you away?
Through others' rose prescription lens,
man I'm sorry everyday
because we intersect internally
and then we take what we have
and we run,
and it all starts to unravel until we're less than
we were carrying before.
I guess I expected more.

Wake me up
Pictures of you smiling in times when I just couldn't be around
Hold me up
Count my rings to see how many winters I've been stuck here underground
Swore I would not burn out
Digging through the memories that made you feel alive when you were young
You were right to doubt
Broken since foundations in the structures you were building came undone.

Part of your charm was
the way you would push me
from all of the traps that I just couldn't see.
Figures the one that was there
to have tripped you up
Would be the one
that was set
there by
me.

Wish I was there
to say good bye when
you went away
Wish I was home
but noplace was there
I cut off
my arm at the bone
in solidarity.
Capital teaches
that there is
less when
you share

And I felt the noose
tighten up
on your
collar
bone.
And I felt the gun
in the small
of your
back.
Engraved in the stone
by request/in recurse
of friends dead is
"Tell me again that it's all in my head."