I knew that I was beginning to care about him
when I asked him about the train tracks on his wrist.

I noticed them the night we met,
illuminated by flickering candlelight.
I asked him about his mom and his dad,
his sister and his friends,
his high school and his college,
trying to find the moment
where life twisted and turned wrong.

The question spilled out of my mouth.
I tried to catch it, but it had already overflowed.
He clapped his right hand to his left wrist,
as if trying to stop the no longer flowing blood.

The last boy I loved stared with sweetness at knives
and he sliced his skin as a sacrifice
to the man he wanted to be.

We sat on a park bench the summer we were seventeen
and he grabbed my wrist and he drank my lies.
But he did not mention it. And I did not mention it.
And we raced each other to die.

I have found that there are many ways to hurt yourself.
I have found that many people I love are hurting themselves.
Writing about being desperate to die,
trying to expedite the process.
Hiding weapons under pillows,
pressed like petals between the pages of books.
We do not see one another.
At least, not in time.

When I am at his left side,
I run my right hand over the inside of his wrist.

I want kind fingertips to have touched
the painful spots although they cannot erase.
I want his skin to know it deserves softness
and not sharpness, not all the time.
I want to thank him
for letting his cuts become scars.

I want to thank them for staying alive.