I Hardly Knew My Dad Before He Died by Suicide

but I know he hated fireworks. This hotel is across the street from Six Flags Fiesta Texas and they’re popping them off the night before his funeral. He’s not yet able to roll over in his grave. Does PTSD go with you? I pray bipolar doesn’t go with you, sheds itself in Purgatory. I wrote poems about his death before his death, predicted his last actions. Did he think of me in the end? Any of us? I can’t find solace in any words, mine or otherwise. I don’t want to find solace where he did, self-medicating. He didn’t live long enough to see me become the poet he always encouraged me to be– he hardly lived. I stand at the window for a few seconds more, the last red firework becoming past tense, just like him.

SG Huerta is a Chicana poet from Dallas. They are pursuing their MFA at Texas State University and currently live in Texas with their cat Lorca. SG is the author of the chapbook The Things We Bring with Us: Travel Poems (Headmistress Press, 2021). Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in perhappened mag, Kissing Dynamite, and various other places. Find them at sghuertawriting.com or on Twitter @sg_poetry