He stared at me like I was a painting.  He was a boy with eyes like creamed coffee and he could always find the big dipper.  When he spoke you listened even if it wasn’t often.  Lonely and lovely.  He spent a lot of time watching the stars, but often when he was tracing constellations with his piano fingers I was watching his shaky hands instead of the sky.  Piano fingers.  Once he played piano for me and I swear for a moment gravity had reversed and he returned to his real home in the stars.  He never slept, said he liked the way the air outside felt at night but I think he just couldn’t stand being in a home that wasn’t really a home anymore, he found more acceptance on the poorly lit asphalt than in the confines of his own house.  But soon the poorly lit roads and my stumbling words weren’t enough to fill the cemetery growing inside him anymore and he found his Mom’s painkillers.  Two little white pills wrapped in piano fingers to numb.  Soon three.  Four.  Five.  Six.  Too numb.  Blood on the floor.  The exhausted glow of streetlights was replaced with the exhausted glow of a hospital light.  I told the doctors if only you could see the stars I swear you would be okay and I kicked and screamed as they dragged me out.  Soon your creamed coffee eyes turned bitter.  You no longer traced constellations in the sky but scratched sadness in your skin.  You managed to get out of your imposter of a home that’s for sure.  People sent flowers, but they were the wrong kinds, hospital flowers that smelled like bleach and false hope.   I read you the card your math teacher sent; if you had been there you would have laughed.

ks

I thought I had ****** all the demons out
when I kissed your neck
but they hid in the crevices I couldn't reach
and when you began to crawl out of bed
at the earliest hours of the morning
to sit outside
with eyes that played dead
I reminded myself
not to groan  "stay"
but instead
whisper "come back"
and leave out a cup of your favorite tea
for when the demons had left
and when you finally fall asleep
I try to remember
that untangling the knots in your hair
won't fix the tangles inside you

when I was seven years old
my family started going to a Christian church
and all I thought about was
how the pews that we sat in
would have done more for God as trees
and they said to love our neighbors
because God wanted us to love our neighbors
but I love my neighbor
because his windows are lit up at 4 AM
a time when only the miserable are concious
and yet he always smiles at the postman

when I was thirteen years old
I visited a Buddhist temple with my friend
she showed me how to meditate
but sitting so still made my skin crawl
and she told me about karma
but I wasn't sure what it was
that my little sister did
to get bad enough karma to die at nine years old
she only ever left out granola bar wrappers
and sometimes forgot to say "thank you"
but karma sent her a drunk driver

I never understood religion
the only temple I ever felt at home in
was the hand of my lover
and I never felt the presence of God
but I felt the anguish
of my postman
as my neighbor began to lose that light in his eyes
and I may have never read the bible
but I've run my fingers
across a thousand trees
and they guide me when I am lost
I never beleived in a higher power
but I believe in my sister
who used to pick at threads on her church dress
and to my mothers dismay
ruffled up her perfectly curly hair
no God would **** her

I want to be there when it's 4 AM
and your chest can no longer withstand the weight
of the demons that no one else can see
and you can no longer push them back
long enough to breathe
and the exhales smell of ***** and misery
when your very own fingernails
betray your palms
with blood that looks like it's not even your own
I will bandage your hands
and hold them gently until the demons leave

and when you are afraid
of your own reflection
I will hide all the mirrors
and sit by your side with the lights off and
run my fingers through your hair
as if untangling your hair
could untangle the knots you have inside

I will wait for you
I will not groan when it's three in the morning
and you stumble out of bed
to go sit under the streetlight in the rain
and I will wait inside
with tea in your favorite mug
when you say you must go alone

when your eyes are vacant;
a winter house
with no footprints in the snow
and newspapers piling up in the driveway
the lights left on to scare away intruders
I will be there when you come back

I just need to know you'll come back

someone once told me there are more stars than grains of sand
I think about that a lot
once when I was young I tried to count all the sand on the beach
I gave up at 72
last night I tried to count all the stars
I gave up when they were no longer stars but instead the freckles in your irises
I gave up at 2
someone once told me there are more atoms in a human than there are stars
when I met you I began counting your atoms
and even when I've counted all the ones between your fingers and behind your ears and in your ribcage
I won't give up on you

I hope you still watch the sunset without me [delete]

I hope you still remember to take your meds without me [delete]

I know you're colorblind and the bracelet I made you just looked black and white but you said it was beautiful anyways [delete]

I bet no one names constellations for you anymore [delete]

I still love you [delete]

the bottle of ***** above my kitchen sink is calling my name and you're no longer here to silence it [delete]

can you comeee findr me? Im drunk on your roaad and I neerd youi [delete]

I haven't brushed my hair since we last spoke, maybe your last "I love you" is still tangled in there [delete]

sometimes I tell people about you and they tell me how horrible you are but I still itch to tell them about the stars in your eyes [delete]

my mother washed my sheets and they don't smell like you anymore, I can't sleep [delete]

I hope even though we don't talk anymore that you notice how bad my dark circles have gotten [delete]

when you tried to talk to me last week I felt like throwing up [delete]

I hope you feel guilty [delete]

it's like drowning but I just won't ******* die [delete]

I've met someone new but I can't even try with him because of you [delete]

I will never trust again because of you [delete]

I don't want to breathe anymore [delete]