i'm not sure what it is, but tonight i'm thinking about people i used to know.
my childhood best friend, i hear she's awful now but i still love her no matter what, even though i haven't seen her in years. the boy who told me he was in love with me and gave me a crescent-moon thumbnail scar that i still carry today, having not seen him in four years. I look at my left hand and think of our friendship. My grandmother, long past ashes now, with her secret candy drawer, teaching me how to knit and giving me incorrect interpretations of country music. the boy that moved briefly into my drama class, downloaded one of my favourite albums to my phone and took my heart with him when he left. i think of him when i hear those songs, still some of my favourites. ny third grade teacher who told me about idioms and made me write my ks a specific way. my handwriting still looks like your name, sir. the boy who would fix my hair when it got messy, who moved on to cooler friends, and acts like he never touched my face for the sake of it. i still have his number. the girl who i loved books with for years, until we began to read different things and ran out of things to talk about. The boy i dated that sat on the floor of the mall with me and talked to me about all his favourite tv shows and held my head in his lap and never read the book i got him for chirstmas and now only calls me by my last name. the boy who i bought hotwheels in an airport with. i haven't peeled the complementary sticker off my headphones yet, so i haven't stopped thinking of him. on nights like these i miss them. i remember them tenderly. i still feel their phantom arms around me, and it is emptier than a lack of sensation. my heart is a bus stop, more empty for having been full.

can we change the ending?
please please please i want to
place a halo over her ears
tell her she's been such a good girl
take her face in my hands because
she never bit the hand that fed her
even when it was fattening her
up an offering to the gods
her trust open to the world like a flower
even as her cages got smaller and smaller
first metal, then made of stars
i bet it's cold up there
please, i want to tell her we did her wrong
please, sainthood for Laika,
i want her to know we're sorry

gotta be god or play god
i wanna have control
something something perfect body
something something perfect soul schrodinger's stranger
behind my door
he's here until i prove that
he never was at all
there's leeches in my skin
i can ******* feel it
gotta check myself again
just to believe it
perfection is holy
and symmetry is perfect
never, ever stop
even though it isn't worth it

I'm trying not to stare cause you're built like heaven
you walk back in the door, flushed
strong, but all curves and lashes
keys in your hand and your jacket comes off

delivery boy, talk to me?
you look different up close
and I'm wondering if i kissed you
would you taste like pizza sauce?

talk while I'm falling apart
i'm looking you dead in the eyes
and i don't get paid enough for
the way your breath makes your chest rise

oh, you're clocking out?
well, I'm stopping mid order
you want pepperoni?
i made yours with extra

do you remember me? it's been four years. i look so different, but i think i might have seen a flicker of recognition in your eyes, maybe a smile. you look pretty different, too, with that half-baked teenage beard and that new school uniform. i remember how our old school uniform hung off your lily-white shoulders, not yet grown into. you've grown so much. I'm half-convinced i dreamed you, as you were years ago. i saw you and felt a tug in my gut, almost like stepping into a childhood home where someone else has set up a life. why am i am so stuck on seeing you, like it left a hook in my lungs, like a scratched-up CD? maybe because i knew you, but not anymore. maybe because we never really said goodbye. maybe because it was always, always complicated. maybe because we were friends. maybe because of the thumbnail car you left on my hand. maybe because i miss you. maybe because seeing you shot me right back to five summers ago when all that mattered was the melting heat of the oval grass and who we ate lunch with. i hope i see you again. maybe next time I'll say hi. maybe point out the scar and fit it to your thumbnail. maybe never tell you i picked at the scab over and over to have something to remember you by. maybe ask you about your favourite movie.

there we sit, waiting
for your dad to pick us up
bus stop pavement
spilling our guts

just like we did
when we used to talk
secrets glistening on the pavement
i don't know you anymore

opening like a mouth
the sun is bright and hot
like a tongue or a ribcage
that i used to know the shape of

spit blood at me and
ask me for advice
let me read the sequel
let me back into your life

sports kit - generic hair
i turn seven times in twenty minutes
to check if you're still there
we watch the play
you from outside
me from the back row
are you missing out on training?
you're alone and you must be cold
plastic shorts plastic shirt
standing in an alcove
where god isn't watching
hands pressed flush against cool glass
tall window
you look so small
hiding like a kid
wouldn't you rather be annihilating yourself on the court?
cold hands - dark window - unspecific sport
unspecific boy
has anyone else noticed you?
have you noticed me looking?
forgive me for assuming, but
i hope someday you allow yourself to come inside
there's a free seat next to me