(October is so long gone now; the leaves are down in my neighborhood and

it is cold cold cold)

   I think I'll apply to Harvard I think I'll keep it a secret

 so then when I don't get in I'm not the failure or the punch line       

       of some long time family joke.

        Hilarious.

I've always been that dopamine snort but now I sit still still still at e-church sermons

that have long stopped being gone to.

She touches my arm and it tenses. I hope my hair grows by next Christmas,

this year's my free pass--don't touch me,     

   I beg.

         God, don't touch.

My show got turned down for something called "When Santa Lost His Ho Ho Ho"

and I wish I could say that I'm lying; I'm not.

And I wish I could say I'll put on my show but I probably won't, I won't let them

  keep it for January it won't even be Christmas anymore and--

Brief. 

    God, I'll keep my letter of thanks and resignation brief brief brief

           so I can shove it in my pocket and keep it for when I need it,

           brief. So brief, so

           deep deep deep, so

I can't help but wonder if God is waiting for me at college. I laugh with my

constant state of fear of the future but maybe She walks the hallowed halls.

Her walls are enthroned in feminist posters and ivy,

and She is just waiting for me to come so we can have tea and talk like old friends.

When you grow up do you want to go to law school? 

You always were so smart.

(November) going bad bad bad

   Put little candies in my lunch and dress like a skater LIKE HELL.

     Learn the Romans loved their structures like they loved their own selves but

   what's toppled over is oh my heavenly hosts I'll have to tell Aunt B--

              if this is a warning sign I'm an idiot for not taking it.

But we haven't spoken in months, she'll just laugh, call me cute and ever-changing.

I'm the angsty teen niece but it isn't bad--I just wonder how much she still knows,

and she posted her old wedding photos on facebook.

Aunt B made a beautiful bride.

And when a Roman structure toppled the marble was hard but the Romans 

          were fine.

     The place was not salvaged, but they rebuilt it on the ground

       and kept it holy.

I'll be the one who made it out--the compass faces North to the Lord of the sun

              She waits for me at college,

     She threw the paintbrushes out the window but I didn't even notice.

                      I was reading again.

(December will shine like the day,

I was promised.)

You want me to write about war. But I can't. I don't know what war is. The word is foreign in my mouth. Here's what I can tell you.

On July 24 my brother went to a meeting with a worker's coalition. He didn't come back. Instead he was found dead in a ditch next to Route 78, laceration along his ribs, a bloodied face, and his class ring missing. There was an unmarked car outside our house for months. Mom was devastated, but you couldn't tell. Dad just kept going to work. There wasn’t a funeral. That just happened to people like my brother.

I wondered. All younger siblings do when their brother is mysteriously killed. I went to the Coalition Meeting House, but it was gone--or at least not where I was sure I would find it. There was a homeless man sitting against a building across the street. He was watching me. I asked him, “Where did the building go?”

He said, “They took it.”

I gave him the twenty bucks in my wallet.

I don’t know who they are so don’t ask. Nobody knows who they are. So I went home.

There was no obituary for him.

Herman Gates, my brother’s boss, spoke about the loss of workers on the News Hour, but not my brother. Just costs. How much it was all worth. How much my brother’s work was worth. How much my brother was worth.

I went back to work, too.

There is no war here. There are no...you called them soldiers. We work. Life goes on.

death is coming closer;

a constant march.

LEFT, LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT

My cousins are soldiers, or commanders or lieutenants.

It won’t matter when they’re in Korea or Russia or Syria.

It won’t matter when there are bullets and grenades and landmines.

It won’t matter when they’re the only women in the platoon.

It won’t matter when they come back wounded

or….

I don’t know war,

So who I am to say?

Vietnam, Korea, World War II--

studying isn’t synonymous with knowing.

Vietnam was a result of Containment,

But PTSD is a result of bad policy.

Korea was a result of rising tensions after WWII

But a lost limb is a result of a roadside bomb.

World War II was a result of an ambush

So is a dead friend.

Unscarred countrysides,

scarred countrymen,

fighting for America without America.

But who am I to say?

I don’t know war.