I don't know how an overdose works

and I’m trying not to find out

the same way I am fighting 

not to Google image search 

inside of the human body     what color

can you hear me      did you hear me

my soft      no as our grandfather lifted 

the urn’s lid to reveal the sediment of you

brother      which I’d tried for years to evade

at your funeral I prayed to you:

go somewhere somewhere I’ll know

as if in that furnace you were made

into God           or a fantastic listener

the color of you      burnt holy

       to slate-colored soil

one summer you grew herbs in the yard

this was the summer I adored you

the summer you pinched a leaf of lemon balm 

between your fingers releasing

its sweet citrus scent and holding

its green wilt under my nose

I’m not yet sure how to age beyond you

when I’ll think    you were just a kid

instead of     I was just a kid

but I’ve been waiting outside the Cerca Del Mar

hoping for an aperture in our timeline

so I can stick my head through the breach

and witness the moment before you left

still breathing     tucked safely

into that motel bed twenty-six

I’m not yet sure if you heard me

or what the wind will make 

of your dust but I am lighting 

my citronella candle waiting 

to see that backyard that garden 

I thought you’d built for me

still waiting to meet you again

to find out what grows there

---

ANNA LEONARD is a poet and musician pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is the Lead Media and Podcast Editor for Blackbird as well as a reader for Yellow Arrow Publishing. Her poems can be read in Emerge Literary Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Eunoia Review, and elsewhere. She has songs available to stream on all streaming platforms.

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