Look up at me.

You write your vocabulary down
​In a notebook the size of a coaster
The size of a cup of coffee. Your coffee.
You talk faster and whip your words harder on it and
I love the smell
​Like I love the smell of Dot's cigarettes,
But I can’t stand how it makes my heart race and my mind
​Tumble.
​Don’t borrow trouble, Dot said -
The smart one, the matriarch, your mom:
Meanwhile I’m braver for the tattoo on my hip
That you can’t see.
Intrepid. I bet you know what that means.
I bet you didn’t have to look that one up.
Some days I’m so angry at you I think cruel things:
You’re reckless, redundant. You are the cruel one.
Other days I can't get over the fact that you're 69 and You've had the same job for 40 years

And you're still trying
​To learn new vocabulary.
​You become small when I look at you, like a child.
It’s horrifying.
Yes - innocence
May be the most terrifying thing I’ve beheld in you -
Scarier than the time Dot’s lamp shattered,
And we scattered like songbirds, the screech
Belting from your mouth, hands, eyes.
The second you are kind again,
I soften into your open arms.
How do you do that? 
You're the closest thing to a god for me:
I used to confess all my sins to you
After school every day,
Yet the gods I grew up with
Are motionless, stable, forgettable -
Nothing like you.