Pay This Amount

To: Stepdad,

 

“You can’t take your money with you when you die.”

You left nothing here and it made you the bad guy

Scattering pennies in dreams of my mother being able to afford groceries

Eating peanut butter jellies every night before i lay down in my bed of carpet i had to sleep on

rationing my christmas money of on a few boxes of mac and cheese and a can of raviolis

Tracking down friends that might owe me 

The house bill is in the mail

No one opens that box just to be filled with indignant despair

Envelopes explode from that door to hell

Water bill, light bill, medflight too

There's a note on the door, $359 heating payment due

She stopped coming home to escape that pit of darkness she couldn’t crawl out of 

My mother, my rock, my home couldn’t pull that dollar bill harness off

I have $90 from bussing tables and scrubbing the toilets mom, will that help?

Why couldn’t you just lay down that vodka bottle?

Now we're cemented in your debt of $60,000 dollars

Started filling that void with careless interactions in hope 

Where are my friends, the ones that have my back?

Empty, pit of depression drowning in an ocean of continuous currents

The thoughts that take me as far away as that large expanse of depression can take me

That lonely cold crisp air became my best friend when it filled my lungs

I'm not that empty anymore  

The firey string of breath that burns my throat when i am clinging for my own void to stay

Take a deep breath honey, you’ll be okay

Cant they see that every ounce of weighted thoughts that seep into my ocean of depression fills my pit of despair to the brim and i can’t keep my head above my own drowning sensations 

Yeah, you can’t take money with you when you die

Happiness, life, and love stood in place of your whiskey bottle you could not put down 

You were so blind

Pay this amount to the coffin of tears and heartache that you left behind   

 

 

In loving memory, 

 

Reanna Payne