Like honey

Believe yourself when I tell you

It's slow like honey

Your memory will fix itself something liberal

All that sugar isn't natural but it tastes like I always remembered it 

Oatmeal and berries with a swirl of peanut butter that tastes like dessert for breakfast

Once when I was a child I ate a worm baked in summer sun

It tasted like shit

But I don't remember the taste of it

I remember the movements 

The sun hitting my skin, my hands warm preparing themselves to peal thin

My fingers like parchment paper and my throat like a desert 

I remember the work of bringing a gulp down and my eyes gingerly closing

But the taste isn't part of it

And that's the only thing that I remember when I think about it

I did it to impress you, an act of courage or maybe servitude

I talked to you once in class and you didn't remember until I mentioned it

A thousand years later when we first kissed

You moved your hair like we were underwater

You guided my fingertips to your shoulders under streetlights 

The skin on your cheek reflected the night like freckles made of stardust

And it tasted like coffee and it still does 

It's slow like honey

I asked if you remembered it one day

Of course you did, but I wonder if in your memory of it, the snow falls and melts on our faces

The sun sets west out the window between the leaves and I watch it above the book I'm reading as a child I don't know what I hated so much about this

It might’ve been the assignment, maybe the choice I didn't have in it, I would get distracted so easily, I remember counting the letters and listening to the music instead

I think it was watching you read that made me try it again a thousand years later

It was Lord of the Flies on a plane. I finished it the day I came home.

A few years before my uncle left and decided he wouldn't come back

I remember it from a few conversations but never saw it

The part where he left and appeared as a ghost in family portraits

A head full of nest and I'm told that he didn't stand a chance

I always remembered a man who would prove that he was one with a flared chest and deep breath

He got into bar fights, yelled at the television, and played war in his mind

He’d give gift cards at Christmas then pour himself drinks as his face slowly flushes 

He’d cry to himself when he was alone 

He took me to a park once

He forgot me there and I swung into the clouds like an airplane over and over

He fought my dog

In the middle of the day as the sun bathed the countertops and shadowed the chaos 

I stood like a shadow before the gate and watched the blood pool from his wrist and forearm onto the tile and in the cracks forever

I remember him picking me up from school until he didn't in the winter because of the ice

I remember he cared so much for us that he’d kill anyone who stood to take it

He has a daughter now but we dont see her

He adored her like every decision he made was hers

She has his eyes, blue and white like a stretched ocean under a summer sky

He loved us and I think he still does

It's slow like honey

Every waking memory trickles down and only parts make it to the mouth

I feel too old now to be worrying about how I remember a memory

The glint blinds me so I look into the shade hoping to find a reprieve in the bushes

The book closed and I admired the white and yellow ring at my knees

My aunt killed herself with a shotgun in the spring 

She would post sunsets with no caption

Her artwork was pretty and colorful with space cadets and long-haired women covered by branches and solar winds

Nobody cared to see it but they claimed their reasons

This was a different woman than the one I knew

Her hair spray would stick to my neck when she’d hug me

That day she left I smelled the perfume she wore creeping in from an open window

I stood tall and weak for a moment in the kitchen watching as birds fluttered from the feeder

I hadn't seen her in some time, but I heard a lot of stories about her

She could not help herself and what I remember was only a shell

She worked in the hospital

She had demons with voices that followed her

She accused the doctors

I don't know what she believed in but whatever it was I hope she's comfortable 

I don't pray but I think about her all the same

She was always sweet to me, she talked to me like a person and not a child

We didn't hold a funeral for her, I would’ve made it if we did

For me, I dont want one either

Give me to science or throw me to the vultures

I hope she had the same sentiment 

She adored my brother

I tilt my drink back and forth so that the ice cubes clink like a boxing ring

An impressionist painting of curiosity

He didn't speak but did so eloquently. He was saying things we just didn't hear them.

His hair cowlicked like mine

My hair is long now and its waves and curls become light in the summers

I remember those women who would come by for speech and therapy

They talked to you carefully as I watched on the carpet 

You flew through the cognitive sessions like practice

I remember the expressions on all of their faces

We read books and slept in the same bed, watched movies and I knew you understood everything

We walked the yard and played ball. I never underestimated you. 

You were four when they found you unresponsive in bed 

I looked but I didn't want to

That night you found me in a dream and we watched that morning unfold from the periphery, holding hands and listening to the clouds

I felt everything from the breeze to the sun, my mother's arms around the boy on the couch watching cartoons, but I wasn't sad, you told me that everything was in its right place

I was told you were in purgatory, but I knew better than to believe what they said 

If there was a God he would’ve had you at his hip 

We carried that stone of yours with Cars and John Deer all the way north

I still watch it close when I’m home 

I sip my drink looking over the water that reflects the deflecting red in the sun's disappearance

Slow like honey

I swallow and brace for the impact of everything

I don't know of all these remembrances what I'll all remember in the morning

I look behind me and see you resting your eyes on the sofa under arching orange skies

The first time I saw you sleeping I cried 

Because I’d never seen such a beautiful thing 

You slipped off into your dreams like a thief of masculinity, quick and unapologetic

Under the TV light and arm on my right, you swallowed up my pride for me

I remember such things as dessert because the longer they bake they burn 

It’s slow like honey

And if I remember enough they’ll taste like my pancakes with berries and peanut butter in a swirl

I watch as your eyes flicker under the comfort of nature on a television

I remember a fortune.

I remember everything.