I made a wrong turn, your house was on the left

what did you do that night I dropped you off on your front lawn?
I asked you how work was going.
you said you were hardly earning a days wage and a pint of blood.
I could see your knuckles gently pasty and aggressively pink
from the hours you had kept them clenched.
I can't imagine where you've gone,
I can't imagine Sunday's without spaghetti dinners and
conversations with your mother.
I wish I had been different than the environment I was born in but
the truth is I can't help
but find pleasure in being shaped by the Arizona sun.
your skin peeled and surrenders to it.
I still find flakes of you in my favorite shirts.
Where did you go that summer,
when we had done nothing but drink and drive and listen and
I dropped you off in your backyard?
Tell me, is mortality worth anything?
should I even be here at all?