Age comes back slow not gentle, not kind   it does not blur the past, it sharpens it  edges clean like broken glass you forgot was there 

what I used to call the future feels like something I already lived through like I crossed it without noticing and now I am standing on the other side of it

everything runs together like coffee spread across a kitchen floor 
like something dropped too hard and nothing stays where it is supposed to  nothing holds its shape

I was raised around endings  son of a funeral director  a preacher’s voice living in the walls missionary blood in my name   I learned early, people leave, sometimes slow, sometimes all at once 
but they leave 

then came the Gulf  dust in the mouth 11 Bravo carrying weight that does not show on the outside  35 Lima working quiet, the kind of quiet that stays with you

mud that sticks longer than it should, or maybe it is memory 
that refuses to let go now there is no one here I can call mine  a wife I lost somewhere I cannot point to children I only reach in pieces

the house stays still, even silence feels like it moved on like it found somewhere better to be I carry everything truth and lies sitting next to each other 

anger right beside the ache, heat that burns through the chest   cold that settles deep in the bones you can name it line it up 
call it what it is 

it does not leave  some nights I break nothing clean about it 
nothing worth dressing up anger comes fast tears come faster 
darkness wraps around everything tight like it knows exactly where to hold

and the past the past keeps its promises better than I ever did 
but even here in all of this in what is left over in what did not hold  something stays

not loud not saving not trying to fix anything 
just there a voice that knows your name and does not turn away from it

a voice that says plain and steady you are not the only one 
still standing in this