we used to sit
under the stars
at midnight
looking for the invisible connections
in the infinite tangle of points of light
you would draw little planets
and comets
and stars
on the back of my hands
and tell me the universe
was in my grasp

you always told me about
how your father
was an astronomer
and how he painted out the night sky
for you
on your bedroom ceiling
before vanishing into the world
without leaving a forwarding address

you’ve slept on the couch in the living room
ever since

that was eleven years ago
and the only way you can remember him
without your heart and mind
going into supernova
is through the stars
and even if your mother screams at you
to give up on him,
that the little illuminators
of the darkest part of natural life
have been dead
since before you were even a product
considered by any of the factors
on the whole earth
you still go to them
because they are the closest thing
you have to a mentor anymore

but they started to eat at you
and your state of mind
you lost borders
and crossed boundaries
some nights,
my face was darker
than the bits of sky
around the objects
i know
you loved more than me

you were never meant to lose so much
not with starry wonder eyes like yours
and a heart as big and warm and selfless as our Sun

it took a toll on all of us
when your mother chose to leave
instead of kicking you out like she said she would
she knew
no matter how you refused to sleep under your father’s handiwork
you couldn’t dare leave
the last thing
you were sure he touched

i think you touched everyone
with a bit of fire that day

anger and grief should never mix
they create combustion
much like that of hydrogen and helium
when set to a spark
i came away shedding skin
and sung
and smoking

i don’t know where you went after that day
you broke your promise with your father,
the one you never voiced aloud,
the one you never told him,
the one where you swore
you would never leave

but your house lies empty
and the constellations in your bedroom forgotten
by all except me

i still lie under the stars
-- this time in the center of the road
and this time past midnight --
and draw links between the constellations
which shine less and less bright
every night since your following
your icon into the dark

i still draw patterns
of moons and planets and asteroids
-- this time on my palms --
because i miss having the universe
in my hands

but when i look up
into the points of dead light
all i can feel anymore
is its vastness
and its oblivion
and its menacing gaze back into me

and it reminds me unfailingly of you

You don't think I understand.

That was the last thing you said to me before I found out you had taken the easy route, the one where the only ticket available to purchase is a stomach full of sleeping pills.

I tried so ******* hard to understand after that, because that was the only note you thought to leave me. Whether on purpose or by accident, I took it more to heart than your absence, anyway.

You never really left. You hid behind my ear and over my shoulder so for a long time, before I got used to seeing your reflection behind me in the bathroom mirror like in a cheesy horror flick, I was constantly dizzy because of all the whirling around. A mixture of fear and excitement, tasting something like stomach bile and the lemons that were on your breath no matter what the time of day, would prepare me to meet you, or rather the lack of you. If the acidic solution wasn't used up on a kiss to your cold and rotting lips, it burned a hole at the base of my stomach that grew into a volcanic crater.

Maybe that was why I erupted so many times that autumn, my mouth burning and smoking before blowing bits of my top into the atmosphere. I lost so much of me in those natural disaster moments. I lost my mind with my temper and raved too often to be trusted. I was called a lunatic because I saw you outside of the photos and family videos your mother showed me after your disappearance.

She was the only one who didn't avoid me; quite the opposite. She clung to me because I was the last physical link to you, no matter how dishonest that connection was. I was as lonely as she.

Slowly, though, slowly, I forgot to look for you in the shadows and behind ocean waves, and I forgot what you looked like breathing deeply in and out with your limbs sprawled out and occupying my entire bed, and I forgot how you licked your lips before pressing them to mine, every time. I couldn't find you anymore except for in the memories haunting the flowers you gave me on our first dinner date, the one I asked you to, pressed between the pages of the one book we agreed would be our favorite, or in the quickly-fading scent you left in all the sweaters your mother dumped on me the moment she moved to Thailand after her messy divorce.

But I can't say I don't want to lose you; I don't have anything left of yours to lose. I lost you long before your accidental suicide note. I lost you when the plants littering your apartment, the ones I gifted you, started wilting because you lost interest in other things' lives trying desperately to find purpose in your own. I lost you when you traded your guitar in for an attempt to find sanity and when you broke every one of your CD's, your most prized possessions, one night in a fit of rage against unfairness and bad luck and life in the universe.

Most of all, though, I lost you completely when you ripped up the Polaroid exposures you had taken of me one night when we finally believed that love was real, and that we were in it. When I asked you why, you only suggested I leave.

That was the night you told me I didn't understand, and I'm only just started to realize that you were right, and that I will never understand. I will never understand your cryptic, poetic responses. They're romantic as heck sometimes, but other times, all I want is a straight answer. I hate the way you would save pictures of me sneezing, or talking, or doing something ugly and dumb. You may have told me I was beautiful doing those things, but lying does not make me love you more. I was far too gone for that. I hated your slow and rolling hips, your lazy grace, all the things that a romance novel might describe as **** and utterly perfect, but when we were in a hurry, they were so inconvenient.

I could feel bad about saying these behind your back, but when I say I cannot wait to forget you completely, it is only a little bit a lie. I've found it so much easier to write about someone you love, whether the unrequited type or the type  so romantic your heart swells to a grapefruit size after he says yes and is so ******* romantic it stays that size for a year after, after they've died, only the feeling isn't euphoria anymore but that of suffocating as the heart presses against the throat and slowly drowns you.

These words stem from the extra heart parts I had to cut out to survive, and while I am left stoic-faced and cold, I can finally fly.

I have not been honest with you and I think that it is about time that I am. Ever since I first saw you, across the park with both of our heads bent over some sort of controversial art, I have always thought you more mind than matter but contrary to my indecisive head you always put me before my words.

If you were still here listening to what I have to say I guarantee you would compliment more the effort I may or may not have put into my hair this morning than the effortlessness of the trash spewing from my lips.

I should have seen the danger of this after your constant affection of my ears and chest and toes - you adored every bit of my that you could see - but I was too caught up in you being caught up in my eyes that I could not see that you didn't like them for the shine but for the shade.

I think I finally started to understand when you painted pictures of me doing normal things - cooking, writing, smiling - but nothing natural, like sleeping - which I often and always mused about in prose about you, my dear - or just thinking. They must have been much too mundane.

Your sketches of clothes and trees and urban sprawl were impressive but lacked depth. It was as if you were unable to see past the surface like every lake you stood and stared at was covered in a silvery film you were unable to pierce, even in the most shallow places.

We were too unalike - I trained myself to see each person as a character with a blank slate for hair color and texture and the size of hands and feet, but you saw only freckles where they shouldn't have been and fingernails too long or too shorts and although you found it all beautiful, it took more than aesthetics to find a tell tale heart.

You lost mine beneath the lake waters.

Call me insignificant but I’ve been chasing undeveloped photographs
Down these old hallways that we used to call home when the sun didn’t look right
Locked away in closets with my heart stuck under your skin
The same old words buried under your fingernails
Sometimes I struggle to find the difference between hospital rooms and a bed for the night
And I’ve never seen the point of living by the hands of the man-made god that hangs on the wall
But the difference between then and now was that I always saw you in the dark
I traded your broken grimace for her smile and I swear to God I will never regret it
Because she speaks the same words with her mouth sewn shut
And I guess thats something you could never understand
*~W.C.

She once told me
she was terribly afraid of
the 889 blades of grass
in the park down her street,
of the 889 worn books
in her local library
of the 889 gum-covered steps
to her bus stops
of the 889 looks
she must make over her shoulder
of the 1 778 pairs of greedy eyes
stealing looks away from me.

I missed her when she sent me pictures
because I couldn't bear to look
at empty frames of empty eyes
(red dows no match red
unless it is the scarlet of blood on broken glass
after a year and two months of tranparency)
and also because the things that slipped into my phone
could only remind me of moments that could never be
and dreams
that would never come true.

I don't know what to say to her
without breaking her
(like the broken glass)
(the image still hasn't left my head)
but she inspires me toward metaphors
and the adromeda galaxy
isn't so far away anymore.

How can I stay by her side
when she triggers me to want to fall
but how can I ignore her call
when she is the only person I feel safe with
to coincide

I am afraid to tell her
(or myself)
how I feel
because in a cliche
I don't know how I feel myeslf
but dear, together, we are formidable
and apart --
I don't know about you,
but I catch myself on the dry spells --
we are fort minable

this song has been stuck in my hear
since it reminded me of you
and this could be another metaphor for something heartfelt
and not altogether original

But I want us to be
the figures in the painting
you said you saw us in
I want to be
that feminist duet
(even if I can't sing and you voice is that of the devil's)
I want to be
the cats in the picture
with the intertwined tails
or the flowers tangled up
on a vine
(I was going to send you that on
but I thought against it
because you were too beautiful to be compared
to a simple petrichor-scented bougainvillea)

So I will be
the 889 poetry books
you dog-ear and highlight
and secretly slightly plagiarize
and I will be
the 889 plants growing
in your backyard,
sparkling for you like replacement diamonds
after the rain
(and better yet I will be the forest
of 889 trees
looming not frighteningly but protectively
over you)
and I will be
the 889 strides
of golden brick road
to follow to your favorite coffee shop every day
and I will be
the 889 innocent peaks
at a delicate pinkie finger or a nose
(because a delicate rose such as you
cannot be seen all at once and truly appreciated)
and I will even be
the 1 778 pairs of eyes
stealing my own looks,
and hopefully you will not be afraid anymore.

I will split myself
into
6 228 parts
to make you feel comfortable
and if this is not a love poem
then it is an apology
and gratitude
and anger/resentment/not really/how could I resent you/you are everything

what I'm trying to say is,
we could go so many different ways,
and what's one more expression of love to you
after all you've been through.

I once had a garden tall and green
which I kept alive effortlessly
but one day I got carried away
with the beauty and the water.

I was reminded of you,
your stature, your hands,
your bright and shining eyes,
in the height and the gripping leaves
and the jaded sunlit color.

I poured what I thought was
life-giving sustenance
but was really disguised poison.
(Your) Leaves shriveled,
drowning in the solution
they thought they trusted and loved.

Funny how too much life
can wither your roots forever.