If only

I had known you when

We were young;

Then I could have held

Your small head

In my small arms,

And stroked your hair

As you sobbed

Into my shirt—

Soaking it in tears

I have never seen,

Grasping it like

You grasp my hand now.

Then maybe

You wouldn’t have been

So alone.

I often wish I could

Take a tool to my body,

And mold it

To become me.

To write my soul

On my skin,

And put the words

Into my mouth

To externalize

All that I am.

I wish

I could look like myself,

And become unbound

By tongue, flesh,

And the act of perception.

I can feel

My neurons blackening.

Smoking

As if they were incense,

The haze

Wafting toward the ceiling

Of my quiet room.

The burn is silent,

But it seethes

As pieces of myself

Crumble into a tray

Like sandalwood

And resin does,

And I shrink into

The floral scent

Of my own ashes.

But sometimes

I have to throw myself a sword

To remind myself

That I do not exist as a child.

Smooth skin grows fur,

Black and coarse,

Impenetrable by the ice.

Dark flesh turns white

And metallic,

Impenetrable by a blade.

I am limited by nothing

But the maintenance

Of my own machine,

And I will not become complacent.

Sometimes

I have to hold myself like a child

To remind myself

That I once existed as such.

That to deny myself cradling

Is to deny the human condition

Of Need itself,

And I cannot refuse

To need.

I cannot evade the possibility

Of complacent death

By shielding my eyes and body

From the warmth

In front of me,

Because death comes anyway.

That's what I called you.

Because you had soft amber hair

That would brush over your shoulders

Before you cut it,

And it was always

The first thing I noticed.

Not the melancholy,

The quiet that hung there

Every once in a while

That was your own

Silent acknowledgement

That you were different,

And that you felt

The eyes on you.

The eyes and the hushed whispers;

The hands concealing the mouths

That spoke of how you

Supposedly treated people's sisters.

They were wrong.

They were so wrong.

And I was wrong

For only telling them that

Once.

Because I actually thought

About believing it for a second.

But I never truly did,

Because you had the kindest,

Most beautiful soul.

But I have found

That the most beautiful souls

Are the most fractured ones;

The ones that look like cut diamonds

And glittering shards of glass,

The ones that catch the light

And reflect it back at you

With pure, white brilliance

Only look like that

Because they have so many sides

To their shape.

They are jagged and complex

And hard to draw

Because so many shards

Have been chipped off

And lost to the darker parts

Of their own existence.

And you were so wonderfully sentimental.

But I have also found

That the most sentimental people

Are the most fearful of things they love

Slipping out of their grip;

And so they clutch what they cherish

With white knuckles and red fingers,

Forever doubting the strength

In their own violently shaking arms,

Forever existing within the assumption

That everything

Eventually disappears.

I hate

That you were right this time.

I became another piece of data

Flickering within your own

Self-enclosing construct,

Another dying star

Added to the constellation,

Building upon a picture

You could never unsee.

I went against

My own glimmer of hope

That I tried to instill in you.

I broke

The most important oath

A person can make.

And you have made me sentimental too.

You gave me so many things to cherish

That I wish I had clung to

As tightly as you did.

And yet all I have left of you now

Are flowers;

Paper-thin, delicate things

So easily crushed

If my palm closes too tightly,

So easily blown away

If I can't keep a steady breath,

So easily incinerated

Into crumbling grey ash

If gazed upon too intently,

Like sun concentrated through a looking glass.

I keep finding myself

Learning more about you.

I still discover pieces of you

Floating about,

Illuminated like particulates

In a stray shaft of light,

Invisible

Until you look hard enough,

Until you acknowledge

Their significance.

And I'm looking very hard now.

Searching for answers

Hidden within them,

Batting at them like a child

That has yet to develop

A sense of ephemerality,

Yet to understand

That they disappear

The moment the eye

Can't follow.

I have so many questions

That will remain unanswered.

Did you resent me?

Did you curse the name

Of your deserter,

Beating your fists

Against the hard dirt

Until they were dripping

With blood and bitterness

And excruciation?

I never asked.

I know I’m not the reason

It happened.

But I could have been the reason

It didn’t.

It’s been so long

Since I’ve seen you

That I only learned about

The last years of your life

After it ceased to exist.

I've still only put together

Bits and pieces.

But I know you were loved.

It’s snowing in my city,

And it’s snowing in yours.

Here,

It’s as if someone

Snipped open a pillow

And dumped the contents

Onto the metaphoric floor

That is earth,

The feathers descending

From the gray light

Above.

There…

I don’t know

What it’s like there.

All I know is

That my bones

Are rattling.

Why is it

That I am most sane

When I want to crawl

Out of my own skin?

When I become

Only muscle,

Red and pulsing and torn.

Raw against the cold air.

I am driven by fury,

By turbulence,

Ignited by everything

I've never done.

It's still there.

That feeling.

A slight pain I get

When I remember the times I was able to see you

On a regular basis.

When I remember the days of silence,

The days of sadness, of hope,

Of crying into each other's arms,

Of laughing at the stupidest things

Until our eyes were wet with tears,

And our stomachs burned in protest.

Of sitting outside the school against the wall by the trash can

Sweltering in the heat or shaking a little in the cold

And waiting for a parent,

Or waiting for a parent to forget we exist.

Discussing music,

Or discussing death.

Texting with our phones like normal people,

Or texting over a Google doc

To communicate

About the smallest

And largest of things.

Watching Meat Canyon,

Or just sitting there,

Watching each other.

As we lived our lives out

And laughed and suffered about it,

We would watch each other.

I watched you bleed yourself out

And murder your brain cells

For a passion that you never, ever

Not even once

Gave up on.

And you watched me

Make my way through

All of the emotions

That were eating away at me.

And then you watched me leave.

You watched me travel miles away

To pursue the same passion,

But you're already miles ahead of me.

And I'm watching you slowly

Start to live out more pieces of your life

That I can't watch.

But I'm so

So proud of you.

I hope you know that.

I just miss you.

And honestly,

I wish

I could take it back.

The tiny, momentary hesitation

That was the borderline between an opportunity and sameness,

But not quite sameness.

One day, several hours

Was all it took to destroy a path

I had no idea

I wanted so desperately

Until it was gone.

I'll be okay.

I've moved on.

We've moved on.

But as much as both of us have moved on,

It sticks with me,

That feeling.

I wonder if you get that feeling too.