I'm curled up by the fire

it is so cold in December

I look through all of the pictures

'cause I want to remember



We're standing on the boardwalk

It was so hot in July

If you zoom in all the way

You can see the sparkle in my eye



His old Tshirt still smells like summer

and there's still sand in my bikini

his kiss was more powerful than thunder

I hope he still misses me



Now we're swimming in the ocean

on the 15th of July

you can barely see our faces

'cause the sun was just so bright



I'm so close to the fire

but he's so far away

I keep scrolling through the pictures

oh, I wish we could've stayed



His old Tshirt still smells like summer

and there's still sand in my bikini

his kiss was more powerful than thunder

I hope he still misses me



We're standing in the airport

on the 18th of July

and if you zoom in then and now

you'll see the tears in my eyes



'Cause his old Tshirt still smells like summer

and there's still sand in my bikini

his kiss was more powerful than thunder

I hope he still misses me

yeah, I hope he still misses me

I hope he still misses me.

I look over at my clock for the fifth time in the past hour. 2:07 a.m. I pull the sheets closer to my face, as if that alone will help me fall asleep. But, as I turn to check the clock for the sixth time, it is apparent that I won’t be sleeping anytime soon. I sigh as I get out of bed and pull on his sweatshirt. It doesn’t smell like him anymore, but if I close my eyes long enough, I can sometimes remember. Sensory recall, I think; yes, that’s what it’s called. I’d just call it love, but I guess a technical term can work, too. I head over to my window; it’s already half-open, so all I have to do is remove the screen. After setting it aside, I climb through the space linking my room to the outside world. The shingles on the rooftop are gritty against my bare feet, but I don’t mind. I just like the comfort of the nighttime summer air, with its coolness and distinct scent. I gingerly tiptoe to my favorite spot on the roof; it’s not too far from my window, but it’s the highest spot. And the highest spot is the best, because it has the best view of the sky, and all the stars that encompass it. I sit down and look up. All I see above me is a dark indigo blanket, dotted with hundreds of little shining specks. I trace them with my finger, searching for the brightest one. As I do this, I begin to talk to him.
“Hey, Ash. It’s really nice out tonight. But you probably knew that already. I miss you like crazy. School’s been rough…I’m still trying to find someone as smart as you to help me with my calculus homework. English is good, though. We have to write a paper on someone we admire. Don’t tell mom, but…I think I’m gonna write about you. There’s so much I could talk about; how you chased the monsters out of my room after dad left. How you cooked me pancakes on Sundays when mom got called in to work- and how you gave each one a chocolate chip smiley face. And then there’s the time we went sledding and I tried to use my sled like a snowboard - like you did - and fell. Remember that? I couldn’t stand up on my own, so you carried me home. You were so strong- and not just physically. You were there for me when dad left. If you hadn’t been there during that first year after he moved out… I don’t know what I would’ve done. Or what mom would’ve done, for that matter. You kept us all together, Ash. You were like the glue in our broken family. And I never did get to thank you for that. I wish I could thank you in person. You know I would if I could. There are a lot of things I would say and do and….I just miss you. So much…” I stop talking to wipe a tear from my eye. I try to stifle the sobs that are threatening to escape my mouth. I have to be strong, like Asher was. I gaze up at the sky again and continue.
“I really hope you can hear me. I’d like to think you can. Mom said that you would always see us, and hear us, and feel us…but I don’t know. I just need a sign. I need to know that you’ve heard every word I’ve said on this roof for the past six months. I need to know that you’ll hear every story I’ll share for years to come. I need to know you’re still here with me somehow.” I search the sky for an answer. Nothing. Tears stream down my face, burning like a liquid flame. He couldn’t hear me. He never has and he never will. He’ll never know how much I miss and need him.
The stars are blurry now, the tears in my eyes clouding my vision. But even with this distorted perspective, I see it. The flash- incredibly fast and incredibly bright, like a mini supernova. It was right there one second, and gone the next; just like Asher. It was a shooting star - something I hadn’t seen since he and I sat on the roof last summer. A grin spread across my face, tears still falling onto the black shingles.
“I love you, too. Goodnight, Ash.”

The thing about fingerprints is not that, right now, there are seven billion different unique fingerprints on seven billion different people.
It is not that in all of human history no one finger print has been repeated, making, if my math is right, which it's not, twenty trillion individual fingerprints.
Nor is it even that none of the quadrillions of people that will come after me will have my exact finger print.
No, the thing about fingerprints is that they are utterly useless
Which is to say they serve no practical purpose in the survival of the **** Sapien.
That's a lot of effort to put into something that is pointless

2.
If we were created in God's image, then God was a man and
I imagine he took Sunday off and came back to work on Monday like the rest of us.
So maybe fingerprints haven't been forever.
Like with snowflakes maybe God's just doing some interior decorating lately.

Or maybe Saint Peter was kicking it with God in the break room at heaven and was like, "Dude...we need a new system, too many people are dying and I can't keep looking up everyone's deeds by hand; it's taking too long."
And in a moment of genius He was all, "I got this bro" and invented the fingerprint
Then went down to Best Buy and got one of those scanner things for the pearly gates and now when you die you just scan your finger and it auto-populates your deeds and if you get in it's all awmmmm and the gates open,
And if you don't get in it's all whup whum and you fall through a hole in a cloud in the sky and land in a fiery pit of hell.

(My parents stopped making me go to church in 2nd grade so my visions of heaven and hell are colored in crayon.)

3.
I wonder if the image of God sitting at a desk with a protractor, compass, drafting pencils, and tracing paper designing each individual finger print all day long comforts you?

4.
Maybe we're some Alien sociology major's thesis and our fingerprints are our unique identifiers for tracking and data collection purposes

5.
When I started this poem I thought maybe fingerprints are keys.
As in someone out there has the fingerprint that unlocks me.
But I've loved more than once
Hurt more than twice
And had a lot more *** than that
So unless this key unlocks something I've never heard of my lock's broken and I need to know who to call about that.
But I don't like to think of myself as broken anymore.

6.
Maybe when God's little helpers are making us they slice off a sheet of skin from the butcher roll, spread it out flat sticky side up on the stainless steel slab.
Grab a set of bones off the shelf lay them down and like canvas around a frame stretch the skin tight around our skeleton.
Starting from toes, to the knee, over the shoulder, around those pesky elbows
Until they tie us off at the finger tips with twine, cut the excess with sheep sheers, let it heal.
Fingerprints.
Our our little "Heche en el cielo"

7.
When I fall in love for the last time, I will dip my finger in red paint.
I will roll my finger across the bare chest of my love and she will wear it there
Like a tattoo no one else could give her.

8.
Maybe there is no point to fingerprints
Like arpeggios before a concerto
Maybe God was just warming up

9.
Maybe fingerprints are the point to everything

10.
Maybe an omnipresent God is at every birth
In every bedroom, hospital, and taxi cab
In every town, in every city, in every country in the world.

Maybe every time a baby is born
God, takes the time to name it
Then writes it down
In a language only He understands

Not a soul knows the fragility

That every couple of minutes we must come up for air

Yet we always seem to sink back down.

These walking trick candles

Make me feel like I'm just another wasted breath

My envious eyes hope to be the raindrops that collide on the windshield.

Acknowledging the sun, yet jealous of the sea

So one day, I forgot to come up for air.

This is what I do.
I write depressing poems at two in the morning,
so I can never really learn how to forget you.
Somehow I knew the ache in my belly would never form be a swarm of monarchs
So with the aid of my left index and middle fingers I forced the larva out
and watched them flop about on that grocery conveyor belt.
... You were more interested in saying "no" when it was convenient.
which only prolonged the inevitable cirrus clouds in my head from colliding
Just.
A bit.
Longer.
Somehow by the grace of god a conversation began to bloom.
and I remember this because our words were footprints
that trailed down Northeast 15th Avenue.
You said, "I wish everyone was born with name tag's."
I replied "Yeah, but then there would be no mystery to anyone."
It's times like this I wish I could forget your rose red hair.
Considering all flowers have to die, so must our meaningless discussion.  
And it's times like this I wish I had that little piece of plastic.
Because you didn't remember my name.
and the last words I ever said to you were,
"I think it's beginning to rain."