I still look up at your window,

The one you called to me from,

The one attached to your bedroom which

Your mother wouldn’t let you leave.

Some days, I feel guilty I never said hello to you.

I can still hear your shrill little voice,

The curious voice of a young, young boy

Who prodded at the numb world to get a response.

Your fingerprints are still on the window pane.

Some days, I feel guilty I never said hello to you.

Your stoned mother, one-footed from diabetes

Breathing into her own dead body

As Lifetime blinked on before her―

Eternity just the next channel and infomercial,

Droned a silent contempt which you felt like a glass box,

Like the window you sat behind and looked through.

Some days, I feel guilty I never said hello to you.

She would scream at you, one-footed yet full-lunged,

Through drooping American Spirits smoke,

For daring to want to touch the colors beyond the window.

For daring to dance in the parking lot where true life 

Picked at the worms in the mud,

And drove away into the blue distance,

And felt the pain of life beyond the window pane.

Some days, I feel guilty I never said hello to you.

And then the eviction sign, a phrase you’d heard too many times,

Came barreling up the creaking stairs, a dog ripping you away.

You felt its fangs snare you from your glass box, from your little window,

And that day, you never had the chance to shock me with a scream goodbye.

Most days, I feel guilty I never said hello to you.