I liked her because she was brave
and fragile at the same time
--a contradiction I know all too well,
the burden to carry.
I should have known,
as we sat and we talked,
the two of us,
in the silent hours,
that even in her bravery,
the darkness would creep in on us
from unseen places,
--places I hadn't seen in a long time,
and were, tonight,
to be brought before us.
Her darkness and mine
churning the waters until they were black
and my stomach burned
and I hated us,
hated life.
Hated life because it had done this to us.
Made us real.
Made us raw.
Made us emotional.
Too emotional, for ourselves, in this small little room,
not enough space to contain ourselves.
And I wished then,
as I always eventually wish,
that it wasn't so hard.
The emotions creeping in,
too heavy a burden tonight,
as they all eventually became
--become,
in time.
Time is a silent monster,
a stealthy creature that makes his way in the dark,
on his belly,
his scales feeling for the vibrations of hearts nearby that are too strong
or too soft,
or too anything,
really.
Any victim will do.
And that night time stole a chunk of me,
caught up to me,
because I had finally decided I had a reason to stop running,
take some respit,
at least for a little while.
And he mocked me as he ate a hole through the two of us,
there, in the dark.
And I should have known.
And I whispered to her that I was sorry,
because I was,
because I had stopped running and she has stopped to sit with me,
and whether time had come that night for one of us, --whichever one,
he had stopped for both of us.
And so I sit now,
alone,
in my own darkness,
because I would rather be eaten alone,
than to hear the screams of my partner beside me, as we face the perilous jaws of time
together.
And unwhole.

Your hands were heating pads.
Your fingers, soft and lithe, heating everything that they touched.
We started with our fingertips,
yours between mine, casting shadows on your bedroom walls.
We marveled that the shadows looked like twigs above a burning fire.
And so we stopped.
And made each other marshmallows.

You taught me what it was
to be chocolate on graham crackers,
place them on a metal rod
and cook them over an open fire,
chocolate burning and rolling across my tongue.
Also, like a campfire,
we traded secrets and pinky promises.
Your darkest secret
was that you hated everything that you loved.

Later, we rode your bicycles through the town that you grew up in,
over the railroad tracks,
across the old bridge where you told me you once took a lover.
It was just a kiss, but he stays with you still.
You and I shared that same phenonemon,
in that same spot.

Along the path, splitting up to your house,
we took turns being the leader and the follower.
Again and again, we would change positions.
Had our tires created tracks, you would have seen one tread crossing another crossing the other, pushing and crossing over each other,
like the way our bodies did, in time.

You had to get stitches only once when I was around.
I took you to the doctor and you told me
that you hoped your future husband would do the same.
I assumed the pain that I felt in that moment was sympathy
for the doctor pulling on your bruised and bleeding elbow.
It was not.

That night, you convinced me,
as you always did,
to try something new.
I ran ******* -but with a bra- across my dorm room floor.
No one besides my sister had ever seen that skin before.
You convinced me to dye my hair brown.
You told me I looked **** and I should have more confidence with the boys.
I didn't have the heart to tell either of us that they
were not what I was interested in.

I sat in the back of your car as you and your drug dealer smoked ****.
You asked me about the experience
and I laughed and almost told you
that i was tensed and waiting
to jump into the front of the car
if either of you were too ****** to turn the wheel yourselves.

Later, when he left,
we baked no-bake cookies and bought chips because you said they were the best combinations for romance movies
and ghost stories
and hot tubs.
I smoked **** for the first time there in that hot tub surrounded by the smell of chlorine
and refer.
And you.
In time, I stopped thinking about the inch or so of extra skin around my middle
and started thinking about yours.
You had much more than me
and you
were a goddess.

When we had dried ourselves and went inside
you said you were scared of the ghost you had planted in your house,
the one of your father.
I held you then and I held you later in our dorm room when you cried and told me how you felt
responsible.
You said the darkest thing you know is when you look in the mirror and you see dark eyes,
unrecognizable,
like there is someone else behind them.
Ghost stories never felt real until I met you.

That night,
You laid your body on top of mine
rough like logs
and then softer like marshmallows
and I knew then what it was to create heat out of nothing
but two objects
and a small span of oxygen.

The next day
you took my hand in public,
in the town they called Raystown,
in the chilly cold air,
and I felt the possibility.
Then,
on the way home, we got lost,
and under the dark trees  
you drew ghosts in the branches
and said I would never make you feel
safe enough
to be happy.
The trees looked like charactures at first,
and then just twigs,
and then the dark shadows moving behind glowing wood.

And then you reminded me that you hated everything that you loved.

You hated everything you loved.

You hated everything

that you loved.

In silence, I pray with a reference never before known to me.
It is soft and fragile,
tentative, like a child,
small, like a grasshopper.
It floats from one ray of light to another,
with a loud whoosh that does not ask for pardon for its sound.
It speaks in a tight whisper,
throat raspy from lack of use,
or maybe too many cigarettes.
It flips onto that same cloud it floated on earlier,
moth wings flapping like some incandescent bug
lit up by the electricity of a bug-zapper.

Fear does not silence it.

--It rings its glamorous wings without entropy--

And so I offer a call into that wide madness of space.

It does not answer.

       I did not expect it to.

And that is okay.

"Stop yelling at me," I tell the walls,
as if they were the culprit.
Stop keeping time with my fingernails,
tracing squares in chalkboard wallpaper.
I have forgotten you.

If only you would forget me.

You trace lines on my skin,
Like a cartography of forgotten myth.

"Don't tell me what to think."
You don't own me.

"Don't tell me how to feel."
That is a priviledge you no longer possess.

"Leave me alone,
Old friend."

Leave me be.

I think you might be magic.

The way you hold me.
Like a fragile but beautiful piece of pottery.
A treasure.
One you make clay with in only a few breathes of intoxicating tenderness.

With everyone else, I am combustible:
A glass-like object, a single place to hold.

But for you, I have curves never explored.
Ones I created.
Ones other created for me.
Ones you hold so delicately.

I have never felt more protected and valued.
More safe.

You are magic.
For making me feel this way.