Instructions: Complete Before Beginning

He says he wishes he could write like me

as if it’s a skill to be taught and learned,

as if it’s something I didn’t sacrifice for,

break every bone in my body for,

spill my own worthless blood for.

Everyone knows that

if you wish for the talent of a broken being,

you must follow in their footsteps

and if you wish to write like me

you must comfort your mother

over the open casket of her sons, then

cut open your thighs with a razor blade

until your soul is as dead as your father, and

scrub your skin until its raw, sobbing in the shower,

until you can no longer smell the cologne

of the most recent man who didn’t take “no” for an answer.

You must scream at a headstone on your knees

in the pouring rain in the middle of a cemetery

then then get up and walk away like it was nothing,

like you feel absolutely none of it.

You have to act like everything is okay,

and be sure that you can spend your life making jokes

so that others aren’t bothered by your trauma, and

stare at yourself in the mirror

until you see no one you recognize

and then, only then,

should you pick up a pen and maybe, just maybe

you’ll write like me.