darling—

i almost made it out
the house
down the slanted
           concrete
                      steps
i nearly passed the garden gate
with tired
        ivy
            crawlers
for a moment i thought i was free
no ghosts
       no ashen memories—
But bags in hand i couldn't help
and took
     a glance
            behind.

My jealousy is not a thing of beauty.
I don't wear my envy
daintily on my sleeves,
I scribble it on my hands and face with a
cheap green crayon.

Looking at you feels like my heart
is microwaving aluminum foil on high.
Not because I'm jealous of what you have but because
I'm jealous of what we could've been together,
had circumstances been different.
If one day you had sat here
instead of there and maybe we would've been friends and
what if
     what if
          what if—

I'm jealous because apparently
there are people in the world who don't spend every minute
overthinking
who don't feel the need to
analyze every little detail and wouldn't it be nice to breathe,
to breathe and not
     think.

I think in fragments.

Half-sentences, rushed together.
Incomplete.
Human.

You think in beautiful rhymes and phrases.
Sewn together with careless precision.
Perfect, godlike.

How could I have ever hoped for us to last?

I think too much.

Maybe that's the wrong way of putting it.
I don't think—thoughts ravage me.
They assault me with battering rams
in daylight, and at night they slip into my mind
As spiders, spinning webs through my consciousness
Weaving me awake.

They follow me like ghosts
Whispering in my ears, demanding an audience.
I hold my breath as I walk through hallways,
Afraid of breathing in thoughts I cannot contain.

I attempt to capture my thoughts,
to hold them in a poetic prison.
Pen to paper
and all my insecurities and doubts come rushing out
Like drowning in reverse.

I can breathe.

It begins like this—

A brother made of fire.
A boy who flares up without warning, like a cigarette dropped in a forest. A boy with hands made of smoke and a mind made of sparks and gasoline. A boy who drives like he'll burn out at any moment. He leaves with choking engines and words, scared to look behind and see the ashes in his wake.

A sister made of water.
A girl who is calm in one moment and a storm to be reckoned with the next. A girl constantly torn between waves of delight and floods of melancholy. She moves with deadly grace, swift and insistent. She constantly overflows like a cup held beneath a waterfall. She keeps a box of half-finished paintings and moves from one thing to the next, trying to understand her position in the universe.

A mother and father made of earth and stone. Both impossible to move, but one so much softer than the other.

A daughter made of air. A girl tossed about by her whims. One week she weaves dreams into her life, and the next week she pushes them away for fear of falling. She's a girl who hides her thoughts behind a ruse of blue skies and heavily concealed eyes. A girl who is scared that her words have become background noise. She looks at the world and tries not to feel left behind. She floats above, unsure of how to land. Unsure of whether she wants to.

It begins like this—a family of elements, once threatening to burst from the weight of each other.

It ends like this—a family learning how to heal instead of hurt. A family that's learning how to share the same lifeblood without draining each other. A family learning to create instead of destroy.

When I was young, I would steal the old cassette tapes my parents never listened to and record messages for the stars. At night, I would sneak into the yard and play the recording back, hoping someone was up there, listening. It was a silly thing, really, wishing the stars a good night as though they could hear.

After you died I thought that maybe the messages had been for you all along. It takes years, after all, for things to travel between earth and the heavens. Perhaps I was getting a headstart on missing you.

Now, I know the truth. That I was a kid with nowhere to turn to. That space is a soundless vacuum. That you are gone, reachable only in the moments I press rewind.