he recites the speed of light one saturday morning, when the air between us was too dark. like somehow that would make it better, like that would alleviate whatever tension we were building.

he is someone new, a present with a torn wrapper. that little glance is always the most intriguing.

we're both somewhere we shouldn't be, saying things we shouldn't say and touching what we shouldn't touch. but it isn't stopping anyone.

I want your fingers to sink into me like stones; I want your weight to hold me down like anchors.
I want your breathing hitched like carriages, I want you pulling at my hair like reins.

I want to know what it sounds like for you to say my name with every inflection, in every tone.
I want to know what it looks like when you drift off to sleep.

i think maybe i
brought you into my life to
turn you into words.

you are so ****** in the head.
they say "crazy can't see crazy"
but, baby, i looked you dead in the eyes,
and man, someone stirred your brain with a fork.
cerebellum penetrated by tines.
amygdala spooned into their mouths like lukewarm soup.
sliced a knife straight through your hypothalamus.
left the rest to swirl around in that thick skull of yours.

you're used goods, they told me.
you passed your expiration date.
a little too ripe around the edges.
i could see that.
you asked people to palpate your skin,
like checking cantaloupe.
you spit out your seeds in between
inhaling smoke and ******* down liquor.

she warned me that you were a wild one.
rebellion and fierce independence.
all lions and tigers and bears,
sutured together with wolfish teeth
and hyena laughter.
forever breaking out of cages
and biting the hands that fed you.

now if only you could see it too.
or if only i'd saw it earlier.

i want to tell you that i hate you.
i want to say that you were a mistake,
that you were something i regret.
that i wish we had never met and
never talked in the first place.
i want to tell you that i
wish we were never anything,
if we were anything to start.

but you're done with hearing from me.
sick of hearing sad stories.
tired of hearing tired apologies.
and i know you almost want to fix it,
but you always decide against it.
you stop replying.
you hit "ignore."
you delete your inbox.

i guess the lesson i've learned
is that i can't change the past.
i can't always fix what's broken -
especially when i'm the broken thing.
and i think that i might be okay with this.
i just wish you weren't roadkill in the process.
it'd be so nice to have you among the living.

it doesn't quite make sense but
i liked what we had, when we had it.
i've always had an issue with rejection,
but this time, this time is different.
it hangs around my throat, tightening,
choking me out until my face turns blue.
["so wear me like a locket around your throat,
i'll weigh you down, i'll watch you choke.
you look so good in blue."]

i settled so comfortably into the routine
of hidden messages and even more clandestine meanings
that i guess i forgot how to operate the english language.
your fingers settled so comfortably into mine,
with your lips on the back of my hand and mine on your jaw,
that i guess i forgot how to use them to hold on.
["i love you so much that it hurts my head.
i said i don't mind you under my skin,
i let the bad parts in, the bad parts in."]

i guess this is just how it has to be.
i can't say i'm entirely surprised;
after all, we are soul mates. cut from the same cloth.
honestly i'm not sure what i miss,
because it was never mine to start with.
but i do miss you. i miss you. i do.
["and the saddest fear comes creeping in:
that you never loved me, or her, or anyone, or anything.
i knew you were trouble when you walked in."]

when i was born,
you cried to our grandmother
because you wanted a brother
and got stuck with me, instead.
and what a turn of events that became.

when i was a baby,
i busted the back of your teeth out
with a bottle of perfume,
most likely contributing to your
repetitive dreams of your teeth falling out.
sometimes i think of this when you say your "th"s.

when i was a child,
you would pick peppers with our dad
down the street and hold eating competitions
while i squashed berries in my little tyke car.
we played mouse trap on the floor.

when i completed my first decade of life,
you packed your bags, got on a bus,
got married, and were deployed for the first time.
i don't remember much of those days.
i only remember the first phone call,
"yours truly, from iraq."

when i was eleven,
you came home, war torn and ragged
and divorced from an army wife
who was never really a wife at all.
you moved on, in some ways
more than others.
you were different, changed.

when i became a preteen,
i met a girl, and looked at our mom
and i said, "he's going to marry that girl."
and marry her, you did,
and had your first child, too.

when i was a teenager,
you taught me important life lessons
like how i act when i'm drunk
and how to do sake bombs like i belong in asia.
you taught me to eat with chopsticks.
through babysitting, i learned to wait to have a child.

and now, at twenty years old, everything is different.
living down the street from me, then in the old house,
and finally in our mom's house with me,
the dynamics changed.

we became the best friends we'd
always tried to be, but were too distant
to maintain. we gained trust and inside jokes.
you finally gave approval of my boyfriend.
we wreaked havoc and stayed up way too late.

but then you moved five hundred miles away,
and every day my heart feels ripped into pieces.
i miss all the jokes, and you waking me up
to our favorite songs.
i miss my brother. i miss my bubby.
i hope one day one of us will go home.