Everyone is insignificant to someone.
Irrelevant, likewise.

There will always be someone - scratch that, there will always be people -
who don't care, about your life,
your well-being,
your existence.

Who don't give a ****.

But there will also always be some who does, one who truly cares.
Maybe they're your family.
Perhaps they're your friends.
Or you mightn't have ever met them.

Imagine all the possibilities, dream out all the outcomes.
Maybe there's no one there now,
but nothing lasts forever.
Maybe you'll encounter someone new.
Or maybe someone you know does care, and you just haven't noticed yet.

Because if there isn't -
if there's no one out there now, and there never ever will be -
Then there's no hope either, is there?
and if we don't have hope -
that someone, somewhere, thinks we have some kind of worth -
Then what is there left to have?

I.
    i.
Someone hurt you, and I worried silently until my lip bled.
I never asked if you were okay, I never visited you to offer you comfort:
The next time I saw you, after you'd been absent for days, I smiled.

    ii.
You tripped and fell on shards of glass, and I listened with worried eyes.
You say there was lots of blood, and you and your family ended up in the emergency room at quarter past midnight, hence your half day at school.
Your arm is in a cast for a time, but I never sign it and I never make jokes:
I gave you the Spanish homework that you missed, and nothing else.


II.
You were confessing secrets in the dark, and I was listening.
You hid away your pain because there was no one there for you, not anymore, and told me because this was short, a two week summer camp during which you didn't think any friendships would form. When the sky was so dark only our shadows could be seen, you told me your wish for my face, how impossible to read it was, so adept at concealing emotions.
It was a fair trade: You taught me I had a mask, and I kept your secrets.

III.
    i.
You are rushed to the hospital, and I pretend everything is fine.
You are fine the day, the week, the year, after, so worrying is unnecessary:
I fly to see you over the summer, despite having had no intentions to do so before.

    ii.
Your face is gaunt, and you flinch at touch, and I hide my worry away.
You trust only two boys, now, and you stay away from human contact and the crowds in the hallways.
After the initial two weeks, no one talks of it, and I am not the exception:
I always ask, after. If I can initiate contact. And I ask  everyone,  not just you.

    iii.
You couldn't breathe through your panic and fear, and my hands shook.
You were so terrified of being beaten. So terrified of being kicked out of your home, for something you'd hardly had any control over.
I told you to call me, that you could stay at my place, no matter anything.
You said everything was fine, the next day. You claimed overreaction.
I secretly worried myself to tears, told you only that my offer still stood.

IV.
You are dying, and I am scared.
I was worried when you said the doctors had found a tumor, and I was worried when you told me you'd been unable to eat for days.
But I'd hoped for the best.

You were the first, you know.
I'd always just gone straight to expecting the  worse,  before.
But then bad things kept on happening, yet they weren't ever awful.
So, I thought, maybe, for once, I'd hope, and the pattern would continue.
I thought perhaps the tumor would be benign, and you'd be just  fine.

You're going to die, though.
And I'm worried about you, and I can't hide it:
I'm sorry for caring about you enough for it to be obvious.
I'm sorry you have to deal with my pain on top of your own.
And I wish *you would stay, could stay, because I'm going to miss you.

I always imagined you’d be the forever kind of girl. The girl to sit and shake her head at me when I threw stale cake out the window for the birds. The girl who’d lie down on the floor with me and tell me it wasn’t the end of the world. The girl who’d come in every evening and ask me whether I thought it was going to rain tomorrow.

I thought we were forever kind of people.

My mind turned too quickly to fairy tales and to the stories of first love that I always pretend I don’t believe in. We strolled arm in arm down a beach, off into the sunset, but it was a sunset scheduled between work, scripts, characters and miles and months apart. It was only the warm, sticky arms, the smooth fingers and the morning hair that turned it into a forever kind of feeling.

There were always clocks between us. You prized your watch above anything else and you let its hands turn and turn, conscious of every tick, every tock that came between us. You were waiting for the ending but I didn’t want to stop living in the story.

I thought our impermanence was permanent. We were living in forever in fleeting moments, in an hourglass continually turned round and round. I was writing us a forever kind of story that didn’t end with happily ever after because there was no final page.

You kept looking everywhere for that final page.

I kept it blank in my pocket. I couldn’t build you a house to hang your clock on the wall in, I couldn’t build you a fence or plant you a garden or bake you a cake to throw to the birds when we’d had enough of it. The only ending is the end of the world and I don’t think that was the ending you wanted me to write.

Maybe, maybe you were a forever kind of person but I just wasn’t a forever kind of girl.

You will soon realize
that there are more people
willing to use their hands
to undress you
but only a few
would reach out
their hand
to hold yours.

You will see
how many fingers
would want
to touch you
than entwine their fingers
with yours.

Don't try to hold me down or tell me what to do.
It didn't work for anyone and it won't work for you.

single book of matches
gonna burn what's standing
in the way
a lone flame might look like
a pitiful part of an inferno
that perhaps was,
but never will be
a l i v e.
you can try to magnify
warmth into heat
using all sorts of transparent things -
one* - a glass,
two - your face that can't hide what you think,
three - the lone tear the dresses your cheek in the night;
but let me know
when you succeed at
caressing cold embers into
a living, breathing fire.

burned out flames
should never re-ignite,
but i thought you might
i hoped to the patron saint of
hopelessness that you weren't
beyond her saving grace.
**** falling stars, i wished on
burning planets to see
if i could salvage the last light
from their core
to plant their fire in yours.

*i will never be your cornerstone