By: James Diaz

there was the time
before i knew
the shape that my life
would take
the time before
i first held something
sharp against my
wrist that could
split the skin
separate
my spirit
from my body
the time before
i knew what being lost
was, i mean really
lost, so lost that
they send people
out looking for you
and come up empty
the time when my mother
broke my bones
and insisted
and i beleiving
somehow
that she still loved me
the time i did my time
and all the time i couldn’t
get back and how this
time would be different
if i could pull through
till morning.

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JAMES DIAZ is the founding editor of the literary arts & music journal Anti-Heroin Chic. His work has appeared most recently in HIV Here & Now, Foliate Oak, Chronogram, and Apricity. His first book of poems, This Someone I Call Stranger, is forthcoming from Indolent Books (Fall, 2017.)