this is just a list of things i think are important

it's important to spit in the mirror after you brush your teeth
it's important to visit the homes of people that you hardly know
it's important to see every different bathroom that you can
it's important to interact with your tattoos
it's important to think over when you want to wash your hands
it's important to take different walking routes to places you frequent
it's important spend a long time unhappy
it's important to hate yourself just a little bit
it's important to make up dialog you'd like others to say
it's important to give away things you cherish
it's important to listen to songs you don't like
it's important to let yourself get bored of your hairstyle
it's important to have enemies to look out for
it's important to look through other people's trash
it's important to use products designed for the opposite sex
it's important to have very painful injuries
it's important to say things to people that you know they won't like
it's important to sit in an uncomfortable posture as long as you can
it's important make up stories when you're in bed alone
it's important to wish you were doing something else
it's important to have unfulfilling sex
it's important to wear colors you don't think you look good in
it's important to undress quickly when you get the chance

and though it's been said too many times, it's really important to cry - and i wish i did it more

his nail paint chipped off
when his fingers his dropped into the bleach
in the bathtub he drawn a bath
of bleach to kill the leaches
stuck to his childlike figure
and four feet away his mother's
hand held camcorder captured
the last drink of her child's blood

but she taped over
the lake michigan vacation
unbeknownst to her
her memory was erasing
the enclosed room
became encased in fumes
and the hot bath water
felt like a frothing public pool

there was a large upright piano
the keys stained with flecks of nail paint
that no one ever seemed to play
in his entire childhood
but his mother would sing him songs
more the worse her tongue got
and they slept in front of the t.v.
beneath which somewhere the home movies collected dust

on a american wall calender
designed for 1998
she drawn out plans
to visit each of the great lakes
but the red paint
she'd used to circle the dates
melted and ran from
the bleach left brewing in the bath tub