Popcorn

I’ve kept every card I’ve ever received 

For as long as I can remember

People fade in and out of your life

Eventually lost in the past, forgotten

I read their letters after sunset

“Why didn’t you ask for help?”

When I didn’t write for weeks

I was asking for help

When I stopped smiling

When I stopped laughing

When happiness became fake

I’m sorry that I wasn’t the rings to your Saturn,

because Saturn had cracked into two;

I’m sorry that I slipped salt into your sugar,

yet your sugar was bitter, I cried too.

I’m sorry that you never learned to care,

Irritation bubbles and boils and brews, 
bakes into the stomach lining, 
infects the red flesh with greenish hues

it works its way up and up, 
malady clambering, climbing 
toward the beating hub

An emerald sweep

of thin spears stretches

through the garden,

past the rough concrete

platform decorated with chairs

of red banded with white,

along the little reservoir

of spitting water,