well here i am again, sleepless.
it’s 1:42 in the morning.
at this rate i will have shivered myself into a cold
before the sun comes up
but instead of putting on a sweater,
i am drinking watered down grape juice wishing it was wine
and wondering where the hell you’ve been that another week of silence has gone by
and if you’ll ever stop doing this to me
or if i’ll ever stop letting you.

you are sitting in the passenger seat
trees are whispers, street signs are ghosts
dark houses sleep outside the windows
there are so many people you don’t know
but there is one, comfortable as home
who still makes you split yourself open;
willing to offer all your internal organs
not just the ones your chest hosts
and it is the first time in so long
that the world stands still

sometimes i worry about the places i would go
if i had a car, if gas was cheaper
if time and circumstances finally differ
if you had a window i could toss rocks at gently,
whispering your name where others have tapped and screamed
why don't neighbors ever call the police when its necessary?
the fire burns in the backyard and the streetlight flickers in the front
and we sit or stand or scream in between the front door and the car
sometimes i worry about the places i can't get to

there are sparrows painted on the walls of a house we don't own yet
less than two of them, more than a few of them
searching.
flames eat their way in from the outside, siding, floor boards
sighing.
someone left the door unlocked to a balcony, all my things are left exposed to the open windows, boxes piled in the middle of
rooms.
they might be ravens, or crows - the birds, i mean. dim lighting lends to an easy disguise and i haven't been paying enough attention
probably.
i don't even think this house has a balcony.

what respect do i owe to my elders if they cannot afford me any?
who i am is not a choice but to do right by me,
as another human being, is.
i do not pretend to know the horrors of lives that i have not lived
but i have lived my horrors daily, in the face of ignorance and erasure already, at twenty-three.
do not expect me to stay silent when it is my existence on the table.
those days are over.

wake up and keep telling yourself that you’re over it
that it doesn’t matter if they hate the rain but moved to england
because that was almost a year ago and we’re okay now
they moved back home anyway

wake up and keep telling yourself that you’re over it
that it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t answer your messages
because it was your fault for ending it in the first place
you wanted him to be happy, remember that

wake up and keep telling yourself that you’re over it
that it doesn’t matter if there are scars on feet from false affection
because there’s a difference between love and ownership
you know better now

wake up and keep telling yourself that you’re over it
that it doesn’t matter if you fell too far, too fast and ran away
because you aren’t always going to be so scared
someday you will stand still without looking backward

i should have known
when you told me
that i was a celestial body
and you favour the sun

i should have known
when you said my name
the same way you said moon

i should have known
when you marveled at supernovas
the same way you marveled at me

i should have known
when you told me
that space ***** you up
and i made you undone

It is not the end of the world.
You were not meant to be on that spaceship.
You were not meant to be there for the departure in the first place.
It would be too hard to watch him go, you had said.
He wouldn’t be able to go through with it if you were there, he had said.
You bid your farewells early, (yesterday) like you’d both agreed.
You already made your promises to keep an eye out for his mother, his sister, his nephew, the old high school volleyball team.
It should not matter that you didn’t see the physical vessel leave the planet.
You didn’t want to watch him go upward and onward to join the aliens just like he’d said he wanted (when you were five and bleary eyed, in the dim light of the television, a documentary about mars, when you both should have been sleeping).
You ran the whole way there, anyway.
You are late—you are always too late—but you can still see the trail of smoke, twisting up up up fading into the blue blue blue of the atmosphere as man made increments of time put distance between you.
The earth stays rightfully on it’s axis, spinning though you cannot feel it.
You tell yourself it is better this way.
You know it’s a lie.
You think you should have followed him, fear of the unknown be ******.
It is not the end of the world, oh, but (by all the stars in the universe) he was yours.

i don't know what to do with it
the fact that with you, is the last time i slept a night through to the morning
and that when i need help from you i am not afraid of asking
and that i had a dream about us in new york city
and that i keeping thinking it should be me
that it will eventually be us
that you should let me take pictures of you sleeping and awake and maybe everyone else would stop raising their brows when you mention i'm in the passenger seat of your car and instead smile because they all saw us coming years before we really talked about it