you don't smoke cigarrettes.



you get scared when you guess things right.
but you do smoke cigarrettes. and youre thirsty all the time.



furthermore, you stood at the top of the playset starring at the top of a tree with its roots sticking out and naked and twisted about the ground. and as your lips twitched you wrote.



you wrote about age. and fast words.

pacing. running. ridiculously ill attentive.



does not play games that require time.

you change your clothes twice and day and have never felt safe.
and sometimes when you feel bored you feel that you need something.
and calls and lose your keys and phone and jokes.



and even when you sleep you cannot still.

but twitch and kick and lay wide awake motionless, certain that you can hear music that is not there.



It doesnt matter about the paralysis. or the shocks at night. or the cold feeling in the morning.
or the writing or guessing things and people. or the other thing.



your head lights up wrong colors. and when you go to shows you do not tap your foot.

but tell them. not fast and aching.

tell them about the beginning and the end.

and how there was a girl that rearranged the stars with her fingertips.

and how the ocean fell in love with her.

and how the sky would burn intself to calm her.

monsoon and bilateral winds.

and you dont stop talking to God in your head. and outloud.

and how there are no marks on your skin.

but guts.

b.

It’s quiet now.
There are people and children and strangers collected and sitting and circling words with days and years and past about them that aches at the bottom of your stomach;
colliding at your ears in waves like sound.
And gazes about you like shame, or sorrow. Empathetic and unknowing.
And friend you carry it like earth. Alone and together.
And love I know it is not the keys you cannot find.
It is not the first day she left you at school.
It is not a heart-like feeling.
It cannot be undone or revenged or hated or blamed like a stolen thing.
It is the nights you cannot sleep.

And these few new days are heavy.
And the sun seems dimmer in its daily devotion.
And even now you’ll hear a distant voice that’s familiar.
But the people give out identical apologies. And empty comfort.

But love there is this.

The way she brushed her hair in the mornings.
The smell of her skin.
The pitch and falter in her voice.
The sounds and touch youre imagining now.
And the empty and undone bed where she did sleep.

And she was two and five and seventeen.
And now she is only a few days old.
Because there are going to pass days and years and age.
And her hair is beginning to grow out of your head.
And specs in your eyes are turning.
And even now as you bow your head, she is changing the skin that you are in.
And you’ll grow. And as unbelievable as it is, the sun will rise again.
The days will up and down again.
Until one day the sun and amber will dart through the slits in the wallAcross your face and hair Where she has climbed unto your mirror.

And she’d never been away.
And she was brave.
She is here now.
And today they are not here because she’s passed.
But because she won.