Peel me like paint of the walls of your cell

chipped like a worn manicure

red nail polish coats the floor

as you beat your hands upon the door

i didnt send you to prison

it wasnt my fault that you thought the car

was just another driving lesson

on how drunk you could be.

 

That girl looked like me, Dad,

that could have been me.

your careless haphazard drunken concoction

steadfast in your hand like you could have lost it

 

Her text message killed her, dad.

As though the phone was the only way to reach her

she glanced at the dash of her shiny new Camry.

And as she smiled over the text message from her mother,

she drifted across the line, smashed into the side of our car

and went rolling into the median,

 

When i saw the car, i thought about how 

strange they looked upside down like that

i saw her, clinging to the cell phone,

face down through the front window.

in the grass.

 

I remember the police, asking all the questions.

I didnt know what happened, dad, i said it like it was.

I'm sorry.