her voice shivered on the precipice.
everything sounded like begging.
i felt it rise like bile but i
swallowed it whole and became a
good little soldier in the line of
fire. left-right-left-left
left-right-left right out that door
and pulled in all directions, feeling the
beginnings
of unraveling.

it feels like sinking.

it feels like the way wet paper
disintegrates
under the weight of
your touch, rends itself more
with each attempt to hold it
together. no, no glue
can fix this, nothing
can fix this now.

but i am a good soldier.

left-right-left-left
left-right-left-left
left-right-le­ft-left
left-right—
screeching, screeching,
jagged and ******
across the chalkboard.

suddenly sprinting, screaming—the kind
that rips out of the hole forming
inside you, landslides and avalanches, the
shriek of stone to rock to dirt.

roadside, arms flailing, trying
so hard to be seen.

𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘺—

suddenly, the sound of sirens.

I.
Box fans and mowers drone below,
distant traffic murmurs through summer’s heat.
Memory presses: teeth and old thunder.
Regret. Punishment. Hope. Repeat.

My ears ring with histories,
sometimes cicadas, sometimes sermons,
sometimes her humming, barefoot by the creek,
sometimes the sting of my father’s belt.

Sunlight slants through bloated magnolia leaves,
thick as tongues,
slick with old rain.
It stains the walls with a color like yolk,
like aging joy.

II.
I wake in moonlight,
before the rumble.
Step barefoot onto concrete
still warm from the last sun.

The sky is full of stubborn stars,
hung from the last funeral.
I watch. I wait.
No birds yet. No breeze.
I stay.

I tell myself this is peace.
But the silence knows better.

It’s not a remarkable rarity,
Not a ruby reflecting the rays
Of the sun, indeed, serendipity
Is like salt in the Monterey Bay.

It’s the dollar you find in your pocket,
It’s the hummingbird visiting home—
The song you would keep in a locket
If you could, for it plays like a poem.

You needn’t be lucky to find it,
It is not a matter of chance.
Open your eyes, be unblinded
And you’ll see it in every glance.

The moon, the stars, the heavens on high
Are not hidden—simply look up to the sky.

He kisses her like the breath you take
After sinking underwater.

She kisses him like a forest fire—
The way the flame caresses wood and grass
Consumed in a little sunrise.

The wave crashes into the shore.

It smells like salt, blue and briny,
It feels like sand on your skin.

The gulls cry overhead, but they
Cannot compete with the
𝘴𝘩𝘩, 𝘒𝘚𝘏𝘏𝘏, 𝘴𝘩𝘩, 𝘒𝘚𝘏𝘏𝘏, 𝘴𝘩𝘩.

Eleven-years-old should be bold and boyful
Joyful, jelly beans and snow on Christmas
Robert Frost’s birches, swinging on branches
Latching to hopes that have yet to become.

Seventeen should be dreaming, dress-up as grown-up
Growing and grinning and racing the time—
Sprint to the finish, and then look behind
Hours to minutes and seconds to breaths.

But his face had roundness that gave way to edges,
Glittering, forged from the weight of the press
How much can you take away from the boy?
You take and you take until there’s nothing left.

He howled at night, at the stars and the sky
He’d have pulled down the moon, if only he could
And he should, he ought to have clawed down the heavens
For the hole gaping wide, for a god who deserts.

And still, though he trembled, sweat slicking his skin
When he saw you watching, he gave you a grin.
It was tender, titanium, tenacious and thin
And tremulous, breaking apart in the wind.

His fingers pressed into the dirt and the dice
Then he gazed at you, O Fate, like a vise
His heart made of gold but his eyes made of ice
And he told you, O Fate:
“𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏.”

Today, I cried at a funeral.

But it wasn’t sadness that did it—
Sadness lounged on the horizon
Too distant to touch.

No, it was the
White-hot, scalding of the spotlight
The eyes, the many eyes, the
Hands pressed to mine, stamping in a
“Sorry for your loss.”
A tattoo, or a brand.

And then I felt it, familiar friend:
The tightness rising like bile, wrapping
Its serpentine fingers around my windpipe,
Around my vocal cords,
Squeezing, squeezing, until nothing but a
Whisper
Remained in my chest, my throat,
My lips, my teeth.

Sadness floated in my periphery, like the
Sun, too bright for me to gaze but the
Tightness lingers close enough to murmur
In my ear,
“You should be.”

i imagine you sprawled across your bed
ankles crossed in the air, hair
falling in strands out of your neon
ponytail, bent over some graphic novel
that looks like it’s seen the bottom
of a backpack far too many times.

i imagine you have one of those smiles,
the kind that blooms soft and slow
across your cheeks like a lily, Louyse.

Lily Louyse, i see you upside-down on the
monkeybars, grinning like it all means nothing,
like the fire is long-gone, no smoke in the
air.
not anymore.

but the fire once was, we both know.

it burned your eyes as you shook
body wracked with a million papercuts
a million scars only you could see.
it licked your palms as you
clawed
at the darkness, wishing for some answer
some semblance-of-self.
i see you curled in a ball on the floor
silently begging the world for—
oh, i don’t know.
all I know is i’ve done, felt, screamed
the same.

but i have this strange feeling that
you peeled yourself up and gathered
each scrap ripped like a banned book
and taped yourself together
with shaking fingers.
and then you floated downstairs and
let the television drown out those
stupid, stupid thoughts and
smiled as kate winslet embraced the
sky—“i’m flying!”—
and i have this strange feeling that you will be
okay.