I should’ve been there
To hold your hands while they were still warm
The hands that cradled me
That wiped away thousands of tears
That sewed my clothes and rubbed my shoulders

I should’ve been there
To watch your eyes drift and close
The eyes that watched over me at night
That cried at my piano recitals
That taught me it was never too late to explore

I could’ve been there
I could’ve stayed
But I was too afraid
To watch the light that had guided my way
Just go out

I felt the moment you died
I was driving, it was raining
A shot rang through the clouds
Struck my bones like a lightning bolt
And still it echoes.

Knock me out and lay me down on the table
Cut along the dashes that
Have been growing beside the contours of
My collarbones and down my midline
Since we first met

Peel away my armored membrane
And pin it down with dinner knives
Unsure of what the future will bring
Clear out the scar tissue
And put it in a jar for later

Wring out my organs one by one
Into a series of measuring cups
And assess their net worth with a scale
You obtained from a magazine
Where you read about true love once

Evaluate the products collected
Noting those of my lungs and liver
Are a few shades darker
Calculate a figure and become excited
At the idea of a fixer-upper

Save my heart for last
It takes you both hands to lift it from my chest
Thinking it must be full of riches
You crack it open with a pair of bolt cutters
Only to find not treasure but

A collection of mundane things
Loose change, used tissues
Tickets and receipts
And a piece of paper that reads:
IOU

I knew you once

I knew the gaps between your teeth
The spaces between your eyelashes
The scratched up map
On your back that showed me
Where you’ve been
And where you still longed to go

I knew the cracks in your lips
The carvings in your skin
The dreams that you projected
On the wall as you slept
I collected those unconscious seeds
And planted them in my garden

I knew the vessels in your heart
The adhesive bonds of your molecules
I witnessed the expansions and contractions
Building to an existential crisis
I saw the moment of realization
That logic may be irrelevant in such situations

I watched as you fled to that forsaken land
Between your heart and your head
In the back of your throat
To keep you from saying anything more
And you stayed there
Until you became a stranger

But I knew you once

I crawl along the crumbling concrete
Eyes downcast kicking
The pebbles in my path
Ahead a stranger occupies my trajectory

We stick to the solace of the sidewalk
Dragging our feet across the broken cement
To our respective destinations
To the distant places that make sense to us

Our bodies are fused to this track
Our meeting is inevitable
As we draw closer I can
Make out the cracks in your exterior

The ashes in your eyes glow
As they dare to flicker across mine
Threatening to hope that
I may recognize our mutual humanity

That I may name you as more than stranger
That someday someone like me would
Stretch themselves out enough to
Fill in the lonely spaces between your atoms

In the mere seconds of our passing
You are ready to bare your teeth to me
You are ready to expose your belly to me
You are ready to lose yourself in me

If only I were ready to stop for you