here we are again
walls, white
cotton sheets
teal socks with the tread

we share small talk
i ask about home
things are the same there

i tell you about my bedmate
she thinks she's satan
it's all up from here

when you leave
i sit down to dinner
a jail meal

it drips from the mute's lips
who sits staring
at the table diagonal from me

she is afraid of dogs
i, a dog
bite a dry piece of bread
and cough

in this lowland we halt and look up to the sun
but see only a black sky

and when you ask
are you getting better
the response
yes

is for you

the boarded up windows of the hospital
they were making renovations
et moi, et moi, et moi
wanting to see the sky
the night before
a police officer with kind eyes
asking if everything was alright
in the back of an ambulance
having just swallowed the charcoal
et moi, et moi, et moi
nodding a yes
wanting to see the sky
it would be a year till I saw it
sitting in the passenger seat of your car,
Jacques Dutronc playing
et moi, et moi, et moi
wildly singing
only by chance
when the song changed
looking up to see
a yellow sun setting

I wish I could kiss the memory of you,
and travel back just once
to when I was naive enough
to hold you close
and feel my anxiety burn and frazzle out
in your arms;
when I was meek enough to nuzzle in
to your soft neck, your lying throat,
and whisper that I loved you
with warm breath I wasted
for two years,
or to finally remember
how unfit our bodies were
pressed together in the dark,
despite our cheery smiles
hidden in hot sheets,
because I want to kiss
something too good to be true
and pretend I don't know it.

i don't love you.
no
i simply love everything about you
i love the simple aggression of the way you write and speak, your mind which says volumes in almost no words at all.
i love the glint of determination always present into your deep dark eyes, which tell me that the strong woman inside is being trapped, trapped by the hollow cage of a girl she's been burdened with all these years.
i love the wings, the scales which shiver with every step and cast brilliant beams of light off of their sharp red wherever you go.
i love the rhythm which with your poetry echoes in me, making me feel the pain of the man, the woman, the child and the lonely girl who you talk about.
i love your friends
your interests
your love for coffee and bookstores and the rain

but i don't love you.

i played the keys in the sky in hopes you would hear me.
i laid out notecards of things that would make you proud of me,
all in order,
all for you.
your voice will always sound like the sun,
whether it be on the hottest day in texas
or it be on a beautiful autumn day.
i know that since your presence in my dreams is gone now too,
you're finally up there.
all light and peace and happiness,
living without fear or anxiety
or sadness.
just visit now and then okay?
do you promise to change streetlights that aqua pearl color again?
do you promise to make yourself near enough to feel your energy as a hug when we need it?
i read in books that it's really nice up there.
let my little brother hold your hand,
let my grandmother make you food.
please be happy up there.

i can hear your voice echo through the halls of my mind.
sleeping is the only way i see you now.
whether it be a bright light in the shape of you,
or orbs in the color of aqua pearl,
or my favorite,
you,
actually you.
some days feel like december 18th again.
i'm wishing for you every chance i can get,
at 11:11,
on every star,
on every moon,
on every birthday,
on my birthday.
my wish is for you to come back
or to take me with you.
you're still here, right?
these anxious hands are wrong, right?
you haven't left us, right?

I talk to you as though you're still here
in the room with me, watching me work
I tell you about all of the things you've missed:
my acceptance to grad school and thesis
how I've started watercolour painting
and learning Japanese
reading Rilke and writing poetry again
you would've loved that

and I tell you about grief and loss and death
how I should've stayed with you that day
I saw your heart shatter and break
you were gone just a week later
I had never seen anyone in so much pain
but when I held your hand and said I was there
I swear I felt you try to squeeze it back still
even through your dyspnea and delirium

I still see you, you know?
when I look in the mirror it's not my face
but yours looking back at me
and when I write they are not my words
but yours reflected back on the page
and sometimes, when I am quiet enough
I can hear your replies to me, too
and you talk to me, as though you're still here

you'll always be the one.
although we never touched hands or met eyes,
i can still feel you even though you're not here anymore.
you're my stars,
my moon.
the reason why the earth spins.
but i still feel empty sometimes.
i can't feel you sometimes.
proving to the sky that this is for you gets tiring sometimes but that will never stop me.
you're my best friend.
there's letters in my closet written to your name.
notebooks filled with bundles of words that have captured your existence,
as if it could.
sketches and paintings hung up that are you,
they're trees in the morning,
the sky hugging the world,
flowers in hands,
they're all you.
you'll always be the one.
and until we meet again friend,
i love you.