i.
playing dead on the living room floor
at the ripe old age of nine,
kicking at the ceiling with dirtied toes and flailing
limbs;
my back arched--
you used to take me to gymnastics every once in a while and
i always liked the way you’d stay to watch me tumble around on
sticky foam mats.
i always liked the way you shot me a gummy smile and continued
to peer behind coke-bottle glasses.
the telephone rang twice before my mother picked up and
tore away at the arteries and passageways that were left in our tiny anatomy of a
home.
to the left of me, my mother cries and shakes and
holds me,
but i know that i am not there,
but i know that i am not there,
and she needs to hold onto something or else she’ll fall away just as
you did.


ii.
“don’t be so cold,” my Sarah once told me
during the evening news.
a plane crash, a child abduction, a few teenage troublemakers.
and you, a boy, with your head in the clouds and your heart in the hands of:
“jesus christ, i love you, jesus christ,”
in monotone chant.
i never spoke to you,
well,
not really,
i never spoke to you in the sense that i wanted it to mean something, or anything,
i don’t think i meant anything to you but
i’d see you downtown
or with your arm around some girl
or your picture behind the glass displays in the school hallways.
i guess i wonder what differences there were between you and i,
and why you let yourself fall off
and why i decided to hold on.
i don’t know how to feel:
all i know is how i’m supposed to feel and that feeling is complete
sadness and utter loneliness and ‘why oh why, why’d you have to leave us?’
reciting it like a prayer,
with my head down in shame and my fingers interlocked between cold knees.
“have some goddamn compassion,” she told me.


iii.
the first boy i ever loved,
walked as if he crept and kept to himself most of the time,
glanced over his shoulder
and dug his hands deep in army coat pockets
as if they were anchors.
my hands were never cold that winter
and it hurt to let go because
the air is always colder once you emerge from something warm,
you know,
the difference in temperatures,
burning,
as if magnified by the desire for stability and constants.
and variables
variables
variables
we could never
be constant.


iv.
conversations pushed through damp air and
each curl in your dark brown hair.
you told me that you had trouble sleeping
at night because
you could never get comfortable;
you dreamt of movement beyond your limbs,
beyond the restraints of your crooked teenaged anatomy.
i told you that i’d like to live in london or paris,
but you know that i actually meant
“anywhere but here.”
we held hands through the
streetlights like spotlights,
kicking stones in the middle of the road at
two in the morning.
i told you that i didn’t deserve you,
“i don’t deserve you,
i don’t.”
you shook me and kissed me and said,
“never say that.”
i buried my face into your chest,
and cried,
and i hoped you wouldn’t notice but you did.
that hour was ours.
we agreed,
it was the first time we felt as though nighttime had
a purpose.