my brother has a Cheshire cat scar
on his ankle,
thin and pale like a waning crescent.
sometimes we tell him that
it's a birthmark from a past life,
or that he got it from getting his foot stuck
in a bear trap
while hunting Bigfoot,
but nobody actually knows how he got it.
only, that's another lie I like to tell.
I know
because I'm the one who gave it to him.

the story I don't tell goes like this:

it is the kind of summer where the cicadas
sound like roaring lions
and you can feel the sweat
trickle down your back so slowly
you imagine there are centipede feet
forming new transit systems
along your spine.
I am seven and my mother still makes me wear
scratchy cotton dresses that I think
I'm too grown up for.
Another lie.
I secretly love them because I can fit my whole hand,
fingers spread apart like starfish arms
in the pocket of the skirt.
we are at the park with my grandmother,
and I am pulling star jasmine
that I plucked from my mother's garden
from the pocket
and stuffing it in the crevices of a rock castle,
cement for our bricks.
I have spent a week building it with my brother
and I am proud.

the brother in question is four
and chases moths in the tall grass,
landing on his face every time
he thinks he's spry enough to catch them.
I'm pretty sure he's mad at me
because I've ruined our castle with my flowers.
actually, no.
he's definitely mad at me,
because when he knocks over our castle
to get my attention,
I run after him
and scream that I'll chase moths with him,
except he's the moth and just doesn't know it yet.
I drive him up the metal slide
that I know he's not skilled enough to climb,
where our grandmother can't see us.
and while he's kicking his way up,
I grab his ankle and I bite him.
hard.
there's a heartbeat of silence and then
firetruck wails so loud I swear the playground
will shatter
so I yank him down and slap my hand
over his mouth.

you bit me, he cries through my grimy palm,
you bit me.
he is shocked, because I am his sister,
and I am supposed to love him.
I am shocked, because I am his sister,
and I do love him,
even though I bit him for knocking down
our castle.
but I am also a coward,
and so instead of apologizing,
I tell him that a huge moth tried to hurt him
and that I bit him so that I could swallow it up
to save him.
when my grandmother comes over,
he has stopped crying but his ankle is still bleeding,
and he begs her not to be angry,
because I did it to keep him safe.
she sends him to the bench,
and when we are alone,
she warns me in her sandpaper tongue
that if I keep telling these stories,
one day he will believe them.

he is sixteen now and we do not talk.
so when he calls me I am so startled that
it feels like I am seven all over again,
my heart racing out of my chest
while I watch him sob.
he says he is calling to talk about the scar
and this time I am preparing myself to explain
that he was branded by a crime lord who tried
to kidnap him as a baby.
but before I can even begin,

he says
I had a dream that I got the scar
because you bit me

the line is suffocatingly quiet
except for my unsteady breathing
as I try to process how it is possible that he could
now of all times
finally remember

he laughs
it's crazy, right?
you would never

and I realize he is waiting for me
to reassure him
so I say
of course not, stupid.
don't you know you got that scar
while wrestling with cobras?
we had to cauterize the wound
to stop the venom from spreading.

I don't need to see his face
to know that he is rolling his eyes,
and he does not need to see mine
to know that I am smiling.

he snorts because these fishtales
never cease to be ridiculous,
and yet,
we both prefer them.

and I'm assuming you saved me
like always?

I think that this might be my first truth in a long time
when I answer:
like always, dummy.
that's a promise.

we are sitting on the curb of your driveway.
you are peeling an orange and I am watching your piano fingers
twist the tough skin away in a methodical rhythm that would be
almost comforting,
except I know that this isn’t real and you aren’t here.
the backs of your knuckles
are covered in constellations of scars still.
it surprises me that I thought they wouldn’t be there,
as if somehow your ghost would no longer carry any traces
of the pain I was so oblivious to six years ago.
I can hear your sister fighting with her boyfriend
in the kitchen again.
back then you used to joke that he’d end up in prison one day.
you were right, and I’m sure you’d find it funny if I told you this,
but I say nothing and I am ashamed
that this part of me has remained unchanged.
you pass me an orange slice and
we are probably listening to an Eminem song,
though I can’t be certain which one.
it doesn’t matter,
because after all,
this is a dream.
I will pretend I don’t know the words like always
and make up my own raps,
knowing that you will laugh.
and in this dream, I will laugh with you.
In this dream, I do not hate you for leaving me only
with these perfect memories and hazy recollections
for company.
instead, I will think that perhaps
time has done me a favor by erasing
the parts that would would make me hate myself
more than I hate you.
your face is never the same when I look at it.
mismatched and jagged,
as if Picasso had painted a loose likeness
from the scraps of days like these.
and I know that this is my punishment
for never noticing the important things
while you were alive.
six years, and I am already forgetting you.
I wonder if you would be disappointed or delighted
by the way I recite these seemingly insignificant details
to strangers when they ask
what you were like
not for them, but for me,
because one day I will wake up and no one will remember
that you had a bicycle bell voice,
and that your favorite color was the stinging blue
of candle hearts,
though you could never get your hair to match it quite right.
they will never know what it feels like
to hear your name leave their lips,
always in past tense.
the private agony of
was and must have been and I’m sorry.
they will never know that
I still write you in the present
and that one day
I will leave this poem for you
when I no longer need someone else
to peel my oranges.

I don't remember it tasting so sweet
the kind of sticky-sweet that makes you lick
your fingers
so the taste won't be as fleeting
as the memory
dancing waltzes
across your tongue

it's addictive but perhaps only
for me
because I swear I'm the only one
made out of sugar
crystalline
and with the slightest
word
slightest
touch
slightest
provocation
I would crumble so silently
so effortlessly for you

it has been too long since I've felt this way
a fairy tale for children laced
with summer fever dreams and other
cloyingly untamed fantasies
that should have no place
in my life now

and yet
after everything
I am still here
still ******* my teeth for the last of it
still savoring this feeling
that even time could not dull
the flavor of

after everything
I have not grown sick
of this
though we've both grown sick
of each other

I was awake at dawn today. My alarm rang out like a siren, somewhere in between cacophony and a symphony, but I greeted it anyway because it has been so long since I woke up in the morning and didn't want to drown myself in my covers because I am afraid that the woman in the glass will stare back at me with those boxcar eyes of hers, holding everything and nothing in her gaze, hopping years like stations and letting life pass in one transcendent blur. I smiled at her today. She smiled back.

3.

What it feels like to be a phoenix: my lungs were on fire, smoldering and collapsing with every breath as my heart and feet pounded in a rhythm so deafening I forgot to worry about being worried. A breeze ruffled the secret hollows of my body like it was preparing me for flight and I couldn't help but imagine that I was made of feathers and song. The evening sun seeping into my eyes, sweat trickling down my neck, every inch of me in so much pain that nothing else mattered except this high and the cushion of grass that embraced me at the end of the path when I flopped backward in exhaustion.

2.

I fell in love with E. South Fork Drive again. If this city is alive, then this street is the lifeblood, one large vein pulsating with noise and laughter and light amidst a greater network of memories and emotions that would put even the most epic of love stories to shame. I danced in the middle of the road in a series of twirls and skips that came back to me like muscle memory as the children clapped, following the girl who heard a melody they couldn't. Their parents, all dark circles and sleepless nights, only nodded in gratitude, and in that moment, I wondered when I first learned that all good things come to an end. The old widow who lives alone in the big house at the end of the lane must've known what I was thinking from the way she mirrored my expression, but she said nothing, only "don't stop on my account."

1.

it was pouring this morning in phoenix,
but I am not thinking about desert winters.
instead, I am thinking of chocolate eyes,
silver-lining on evening storm clouds that cross the horizon
like restless wolves,
friendship bracelets I've collected through the years,
broken promises,
whether a kiss from the golden-haired boy
would taste like strawberries
if I could ever learn to love him,
and how it is that january skies could be so similar
to chilly march mornings in cambridge.
mostly,
I am thinking about how change
might be good.

did you know
that every time you recall your favorite memory,
you are rewriting it?
it makes me wonder how long it would take
before those revisions become something
entirely new
and which details we choose to cling to,
memorizing those patchwork pieces
until everything else is forgotten.
it is funny how these very same memories
are our most cherished lies.

perhaps someone is rewriting me right now,
desperately grabbing onto past conversations
and the way the sentences caught in my throat,
as if I were fighting to breathe.
maybe we are both thinking about how change
might be good.

answer me honestly:
do we miss the people that have left us,
or are we just trying to disguise the places
where they made us empty?
in our minds.
in our memories.
are we hoping,
that by remembering,
we will again be able to taste that first moment,
before we rewrote it a hundred different times?
I don't know.
I am searching for the details that escaped me, too.
in an effort to stop them from leaving,
I have forgotten that doing so
still requires a step forward.

yes, change might be good.
that is what I am thinking
as I let the january skies
pass me by.

I am happier now
than I've ever been,
and your absence is not
a coincidence.

there is a kind of heartache
a name we don't dare speak
but I see it on your face now
in the familiar way
you bite your lip
it is spelled painstakingly
in bloodshot eyes
and salt-streaked cheeks
that before
they were yours
were mine