someone asked me, what happened with you two? the other day
    
     my fingers resting in your palms
    running through your hair
     tracing over your scars
     touching your smile.
     your laugh
     your eyes looking down into your lap
     pointing at the red cars on the ceiling
     your smile

i don't know, i always reply

i remember the first day of 5th grade still
i felt all eyes on me as i searched for a spot for lunch
completely new
at 9, kids know how to sort themselves
i wasn't an early bloomer
glasses, frizzy hair, shy, dazed smile
i sat down next to a kid who was squirting ketchup all over his pizza

i'll tell you a secret.

i'm the biggest liar in the world

i kiss people on the steps at 7am and tell them
"to let it all out"
but i can't look into cameras

do you want to know me?
the second you tell me
i'll run the other way

being kind and caring is just a rouge,
so you don't notice
the girl who is terrified of herself

lessons you taught me
dont accept food from people you dont like
sometimes its best to wait
you dont need as much chocolate as you think you do
up with a
twist

the other half of my heart and soul
a source of inspiration to grow
a presence of real love
the grace and patience it is comprised of

most delicate and precious to me
but even so, i hope you always feel free
and when we part
you will always carry a piece of my heart

you've given me something to know
something to hold onto wherever i go
a truth across time and space
a treasure to never replace

people say that when you like someone, you should tell them.
they say that it makes everything easier in the end.

but those people won't tell you what to do
when what i need to say can't be said
or how to stop my face from turning bright red

i'd like to think the people who would so easily say
what they feel, wouldn't realize how special you are
(like how you made me cry from laughter under fake stars)
or wouldn't remember your favorite candy
or know how you are just as sweet
(mondays and wednesdays became my favorite part of the week)

without you here,
if they ask, i say i'm just fine
but it's all off without your shaky hands across the table from mine
i don't want to listen to my music anymore because you love those bands too
and i wonder if anyone will stay in the library all night just to be with you

but i guess those people know a thing or two
because they never worry about the silly things that i do
and those types of people always seem to interest you

when i was little
and my mother called me her sunshine
i understood that sunshine
is a warm solidity in your tummy
and sunshine is reserved for
the people that hold each other's hands
outside white houses with
smiling suns drawn in the upper right hand corner
of large sheets of thin paper

and when i was seventeen
i heard my friend compare her love to the night sky
equally as endless and spectacular
and i knew that the moon and the stars
were for the people
you fell asleep with
to wake up with in warm sun soaked rooms
and wrote poems for, scribbled on napkins in cafes

but when i would gaze up with the others
i didn’t understand how scattered points of light in endless darkness could be comforting

now i understand
you are my moon
because i can see you shine from anywhere
and you are my stars
because i can always see your blurred edges through drowsy eyes
and feel safe and warm and content
i wrote you this poem on an old note
while sitting on the steps of a white house
with you in my upper right hand corner

today,
in manhatten
i let a guy on drugs cut in front of me
at the checkout
he asked nicely;
i found him endearing

i had never seen someone so earnestly and sweetly
try to contain how strung out he was
and i don't think i'd ever seen someone
so strung out
the cashier looked him up and down,
but he just turned back at me,
and smiled

thanks for being so nice,


you have green eyes

he smiled sweetly,
and turned back

i froze;
i felt sick —
he had seen me
and some people take weeks,
months,
years,
to notice

and he took his change & left

i.
and love and you. i loved your old car, and your name for it. it was so clever. you're so clever and unique and i'm holding your hand and we're unique. what do you mean? i mean, we're different from the rest. we just are. we have to be. because it's you and me. and rainy cities at night aren't sloppy and slushy and blurry and grey. they're beautiful blue. deep blue, mazarine blue, and the street lights are backdrops for our shadows. our shadows and the puddles in the street. we walk through the puddles and you don't mind, because you like my rain boots. and i like you. your eyes are big and brown and sweet and round, and i'm looking at you, and you're looking at me. because here's looking at you when we fall onto the sand at the beach it's okay because when we fall, we fall together and that is our streetlight manifesto.

ii.
when i walk through a new city at night, it's full of noise and movement. but i am alone. i pass quickly by. i pass old streetlights and memories. i close my eyes and blink away it all. i don't go to the beach anymore. the sand fills my shoes and it rubs at all those old memories. and old cars seem like they really only belong in movies. and now i collapse onto just a bed in a building.

iii.
knowing more and thinking different. because you are different. shyer and sweeter but with the shaky hands i seem to be drawn to. and i draw you. and i on a park bench singing songs from bands we pass from ear to ear. candy wrappers at the library and frosties past my twelve. this is different and i am older. you are not him. and i know you and i know differently now. but you are familiar like the rainy roads i’ve always sped down and you are sweet like the candy you keep in your pockets. i'm going to try to inhale you all at once.

iv.
it hurt so much. so differently than ever before.

v.
you were unlike the rest. and by the rest, i only mean two.
you weren't very quiet. and you were suspicious of everyone
the first time i saw you look at me. and i mean
right
at
me
you thought you took me all in, in that moment. but i was the one who took you in, all of you, completely, for good.

vi.
for you, i was a shadow. i am your shadow; i am always here for you, and also always here behind you. i can no longer say i’m older and know better with pride. when i say i'm older, it escapes as a sigh when i look out of my new window into the same rainy streets. i have less to say but more to remember. like where i have to draw the line. when i am drawn to you but now when i draw a line i don’t draw you.