The fragments I learned about you, I gathered and sold to no one.

I scribbled them in a book by an author of the same name, with the inscription:

“Don’t come here, made of matches,

unless you want to play with fire.”

A rosary of lunar pages that keep me honest,

this prayer in recall happens nightly.

I didn’t understand the impression of a higher power until you

spoke in tongues above me, through gritted teeth,

the sweat like blood on your brow.

Your ability to be blind and everywhere at once crafted me trembling in faith.

What was thought a dead language, had found its speaker.

But being branched, fragile truth uttered nowhere else-easy to forget.

How air is tangible, but invisible and taken for granted.

So proves that vision isn’t the strongest sense,

just the cruelest.

You still wouldn’t say my name in the street, even only to remember the vowels.

It is easy,

so very easy,

to mistake benevolence for love