We were holding hands in the summer
and the street was cracked
and the clouds were being greedy
even through their kindness
and their tears turned salty on my cheeks
when I looked at him

It became too much;
he slipped down the rabbithole and faded
like eighty year old newsprint
until there wasn’t much left but the tattered shoes
I told him to replace months ago
and the echo of his last breath
on a breeze that was
staler than the bread left out on the counter
this morning

I saw the things I didn’t want to see,
the things he didn’t want me to see,
and I wished at that moment
for a gallon of bleach to pour into my head
just burn it all away

but no one can fade like he can.