I can still hear you teasing me
When I'd steal your cigarettes
I only smoked with you
And I miss smoking.

Loud noises in the room are galaxies away
The waves of color on the wall paralyzed me
I lie my head next to them, unsurprised
I hear unfamiliar voices asking ‘why don’t you go for it’
I don't believe in anything anymore
Not the words I pretend not to listen
Not the forms on the wall
Not the green spots in your eyes
I stand in the same place, wanting
Without moving a finger to grab it.

It is too late to sing
‘Wish you were here’
At the park in early spring
Under rainfall and bad covers.
It is too late to ride bikes
To race by the river trail
Fast through flashlights
A thousand stars beneath us.
It is too late to write
About signs and fights
In the drunken crowds
Too late to see a light
I blame this darkened room
Songs, sights, sarcasm, you.

He will forever be
in his poetry notebook
behind my black-and-white poster,
next to ashes—his ashes—I smuggled
through customs in two different countries,
thinking he'd probably do the same for me;
After all, he was the one who taught me
how to smuggle things through airports in the first place.

We would both laugh
that I managed to bring a part of him all the way here,
like we'd laughed when he brought **** in his backpack
from Canada to the U.S., and from the U.S. to South America.
Who can blame him? Canadians have the best ****.
I bet he'd like that I made the inverse journey
with him, or what I have left of him,
and that he's not just at the bottom of some ocean,
or worse, at our mum's.

For the young,
the gut-wrenching ache
of love lost
Remembers.

The old witches know:
it forgets,
for memory is the reward—
a gift for having known
a twin in this world
(even if only for a short time).

I see the lights through the window
Forming shapes in your ceiling
We lie in bed and you look at me
You don't say what you are thinking
But you smile and get closer.

I hear the traffic through my window
Keeping me awake till late at night
Too late to say what I was thinking
That time I wanted to stay
But left anyway.

We flew over a highlands silver lake,
Dancing moonlight caressed its dark waters;
It mirrored visions I'll never forsake.

The Milky Way waltzed above you, awake,
Planets laughed at us; they knew our chances.
We flew over a highlands silver lake.

I followed the brightest star—your namesake.
Phantoms of my friends swam in the deep glass;
It mirrored visions I'll never forsake.

Self-preserving, I escaped like a snake,
Slithering past a wildfire, free at last:
We flew over a highlands silver lake.

Once I thought you were nothing but a rake,
Then you bewitched me with tales of heroes;
It mirrored visions I'll never forsake.

In the dead of night, we are an earthquake—
Am I mad or brave for coming with you?
We flew over a highlands silver lake,
It mirrored visions I'll never forsake.

Some nights I visit you on Martian lands,
The red dust swirls in mindless, restless air.
We walk, I hold your cold, unearthly hands;
I tell you, always remember I care.

In ocean blue lives, I cared for your hair,
Your graceful brown curls falling down your face;
I cared for your voice in songs of despair,
I cared, my love, whom no one can replace.

Another world would give us time to spare
Before the darkness claimed your last pale breath.
We'd dance in moonlit trails for what we share,
And promise nothing would part us, not Death.

     She took you one day, when crossed were our stars.
     As slumber came, you said, see you on Mars.

The Necromancer first noticed her magic
at seven, when her cousin passed.
Thunder descended upon her planet
to whisper a soft, solemn song of despair
and she knew, before anyone told her,
she knew death.

At thirteen, Pops followed into darkness,
but the Necromancer saw him again.
He walked her otherworldly dreams
in some distant galaxy, he held her
crying frame, he pleaded between sobs:
Take care of the living.

Still, the Necromancer never ceased to go
into other realms, flirting with the abyss,
colouring neverlands with her imagination.

It all changed when her youngest sibling
Fell.

Now, only sometimes,
when a full moon looms over silver clouds,
only then she peers behind the veil
and visits her brother in another existence.
They talk, they laugh, they cry,
but she always returns home,
because he is the one soul
with the magic to convince her
to live.

Frost caught up
to ghostly fingers;
His December walks
filled dark prophecies,
would he witness
another year
or a month?

In the deep snow,
he knew the answer.

The Necromancer told him,
in her underworldly dreams,
he had once been her true love.
He smirked:
I’m still here
in your words.