by Josh Olsen
KT said she feels like I make him up,
but I think when I talk about him
it’s the only time she ever really believes me.
I tell her that I dream about him –
mom brings him to Birthdays or Easter.
I bump into him at the Pic-A-Nic Basket
buying pepperoni stix.
I pull up next to him at a red-light.
Sometimes he confronts me.
Asks where I’ve been all this time.
Why I’ve been running away.
Other times I break his nose or tell him
my mom didn’t deserve
the way he treated her. Treated us.
That he turned my brother into a cutter.
Sometimes I wake up feeling guilty.
That I should make amends.
Should write him a letter and
let him meet his grandkids.
Then mom tells me she talked to him
the other day. That he called her
a whore. Called my sisters bastards.
Called me a coward.