I watched him take California's south side,
tossing invitations back over his bronzed shoulder,
in a careless way he had coined

But the sky here has a way of wrapping me up, lifting my chin
upward and rooting my feet in this rocky Missouri soil
Like petals of an overgrown sunflower, my lightened hair
danced around my face

I watched the pale blue of the sky fall down on me and intensify
Masking the sprinkle of stars where our gazes had collided,
though the pairs of eyes set thousands of miles apart,
resting snugly in their sockets

Sleepy words streamed into my ear, leaving my mind feeling lazy
Hardly able to find the familiar tinge of dryness in his sentences--
As though the thoughts he had were lessened in value the moment
they passed through his lips

The early morning clouds had not yet agreed upon the day's weather,
billows of white thinning out into wisps and collecting again
Slipping over the roof top and onto the next neighborhood

I was lulled to sleep in their slow deciding as he held his breath for
the yellow of sunrise to spill through his shades in slats,
reassuring him that the darkness is not forever, although I had
caught him wishing it might be

I had never met my match until our two brains rattled,
our hard heads made contact and butted repeatedly
He made a habit of softening mine, kicking soccer ***** at my face
and kissing me slowly

Fast friends, always outrunning one another
Cynicism rushed warm red in our young blood
We unbandaged our wounds, and bled
openly into summer nights- so thick you could reach out
and steal handfuls of loud black

My crippled hands shakily wrapped up his festering gashes
Sealing in hours of stories of starving, of screaming,
of a scared little boy all bruised and beaten, before
we vanished back into our laughably broken lives

The back of his Blazer became my bed while my darling father
snored drunken oblivion into the air conditioned house I escaped from
Fresh cut grass from the open field, caught rides on my bare feet,
scattering across the comforter that spread over folded back seats

We wrestled and hurt ourselves, I would win, underneath him
We got faded and hurt each other, spilling unspeakable tales from
between our teeth and tears from frozen eyes, down onto our collars
Smoking like chimneys as we lay, swimming in music and moonlight

Every sunset was justified in its ending
Putting the people to sleep and quieting the cooling streets
The beginning of every day was a feather
trying to break the spine he was straining to straighten

He would tell you he was fine,
never given the chance to settle into good,
interrupted every time he slid into being okay
I would tell you he was a private young man,
overcompensating for chronic unhappiness
with good intentions

Laughing off every nightmare, until the room shook,
with sinister hilariousness-his own brand of medicine for
a sweet heart, poisoned by misfortune, a sharp mind
blinded by the lack of peace and easy comings

The night he left, I bought a sapphire tie to compliment his icy eyes
Unsure whether It would be a poor parting gift
or end up tied around his wrists to keep him from going

We had ended the physical slice of our relationship some time before
I sat in his passenger seat and struggled to form a sentence
that would be worth a ****

We waited for our stupid minds to catch up
to the swelling and swirling of emotion inside us
Refusing to say goodbye out loud, I tasted the
Peppermint and *** on his mouth for the last time,
quickly

My best friend went away and he never came back

Someday I will be unexpectedly thrown to the ground
Blaming it on my own unsure feet
until I catch sight of the culprit pair of Vans attached to a
smirking Blonde Beauty

I will grin as I trip on him again