My favorite time of the day is the majority of six minutes that his attention becomes mine.
He's something I'd love to wrap around myself
and I'd imagine a warm feeling
cooling the burnt edges and rough breaks
easing the incessant aching that has become my life.

Something about the way he talks makes the world dissipate around us
and for once I'm not drowning in myself
but in him.

When he's here there aren't words beating my mind
or feelings strangling me with bloodied fingers
there isn't that urge to burn myself down
and the sense that I'm not okay doesn't exist to him
because I don't let him ask.

I'd much rather spend our time listening to him
and always walking on his right side
because I love to look up at him and see how the sun plays shadows on the creases of his mouth
and the infrequent freckles that play in lines on his cheek
the familiarity of his eyes that tell stories of ever changing blues and greens
how he always tilts his head towards me when we talk.

When he crosses my mind (all too often)
butterflies don't shift and shake
they begin to awaken and tremble delicately
nostalgia creeping in every crevice
and I'm consumed in his essence.

And it's funny because he always tells me about her
but I always ask.
How he's never felt like this and how different everything is.
It hurts me when he speaks of how unsteady they are
upsets me how she won't love him like she should
like I could.

In those six minutes something normal flickers inside me
something reassuring.

Usually in our six minutes I ignore the irony that while he's falling for her
I'm falling for him.

in the fifth grade
we whispered oaths with wide-open eyes
the decaying gums of a chronic smoker
and the **** addict's exposed ribs and bleeding scabs
burned into our retinas
but they never thought to warn us
of the dangers of warm brown eyes
and a smile like floodlights
of ragged breaths in a window seat
and the drug that his hands can be

you and I are alike
excavated from our homes time and time again
breaking down walls in the hope that one day
there will be too much rubble to clear.
we are full of leaking helium
our tails dragging along the ground
in search of a resting place
we clutch our old dreams in our fists
and we confide our hurts in the dark when we should be asleep
the only difference is
while I was in love with a feeling
you were in love with a girl
and you carry her in your ribcage like your last gasp of oxygen
hitting your feet against the pavement again and again
to loosen the image of her smile