(The day I met you, I relented: “Friend, do what you are here to do.”)

I flicked the gas card between my fingers. We had $50 to do whatever we wanted, maybe even take that aquarium trip up to Boston we had talked about so much. Your birthday was a month ago, you were then 17. This was the second birthday of yours we shared together and before you left- not before I told you to drive carefully, my love, and before you forgot all the leftover cake at my house- you kissed my cheek. I laughed into the naked air over my bed- Judas. You are my Judas. The Bible never taught me anything.

I don't think you know what anger can do to a person. You see, I haven't cried about you once. Not once, in one year. I have laid in the same spot where we first kissed, and I have not imagined your clumsy lips over mine.  I realized then you could love something more than yourself- as yourself. The heat from your shoulder never bled out of my body. But, I do not imagine much more.

And maybe I'll be here, standing in the spot where we looked to the stars, a spot whose coordinates will never be written in history books, a spot with numbers I have no reason to remember but I will, and I will be screaming, where are you? Where did you go? Where did I go?

But I know exactly where you are. I will know you are lying asleep in your too-neat bedroom, the one blanket you had before me pressed over you like origami. I will know you are not thinking of me, and definitely not dreaming of me because you do not dream.

And I will know that when we were 15, we dreamed about 18. You could finally drive to who knows where, the window of your car down, music as loud as the law allows, the soft Cali sunlight sainting you. But now, my Judas, you are a birthday and a lifetime away, and where you are now and forever is wherever I left you when we last held hands.

(Today: “I will not kiss Thee as did Judas; but as the thief, I will confess Thee: Lord, remember me in Thy kingdom.”)