wearing decades like
the hoops my grandmother gave me
that i was too self
conscious to wear back then

running down the paths
you mapped for me, ever hid-
den, ever con-
voluted, but i always
always believed in you

even in that park
ing lot where you had me
follow you to break my heart

not clean in two
not neat
but like you hadn’t read my letters
like you didn’t know i hate the heat

you doused me in your fluid,
looked back with eyes like matches

“i did this
for us”

i believed you when you said
thru the gospel chorus
encoded in symbols
echoing thru that mezzanine

“it might be over soon”

i just didn’t think
you would go
too

i don’t think you know this,
how could you?
our words have been so scant since
so silence could grow
and i could know,
yes a flower blooms in the dark
but not every day is equinox
and sometimes a fire must burn
our home,
our heart
our hearth,
so we may know we are our hurt
and so much more
and i am just as much
the surnames i don’t have
as the ones affixed
like an ill-fitting car train

you threw the match on that fire,
a date one could drop
if math was my major,
maybe with your mad eyes
(we were lost in love,
whether you ever know
is not up to me)
you thought i would still follow you
ugly duckling train back
back to the room
i always adorned in light
for you
for me
for us
for the words
for the twinkles
for all the spaces in-between

but as a ******* fire
burning curl to toe
i had to make my own decisions
from then on

and my first decision, on that day,
that very hour of my flame,
was right.

a right turn.
out the lot,
across the cresting hill,
past a stop sign,
up the stairs of my apartment
where i would set consecutive fires myself
to remind myself i
am still
alive.

i was right.
instead of turning back,
crossing the observatory of the moon,
jaywalking to the closest four stories
a girl could find
could fall
could close the wretched book on

how soon do you want it to be over?

the plot is always twisting

the moon is on my back now,
i could show you if you’d like

truthfully i still don’t know
my right from my left all the time
but i looked
in the chest where i keep you
and wouldn’t you know
time turned all that hardness over easy
and i know you
were doing your best
and i found myself
forgiving the rest

i found myself
still loving you,
like the words i keep, like the words
i give away, like when i see an
old lover and i dont know
what to say

but it might be over soon,
and wouldn’t you know
that has me running again
running towards you, this
time, because i know
your dark corners
even if your eyes
never meet
mine again

never spark, like i’m a 5foot8 flint
like im your favorite, like we love
every single thing
about around and because
of each other

you need to know
i forgive you.
i’m not mad anymore.
i think i understand.
and i will listen again

in time, am i,
in time, is there
time, i can hold you
in my chest, with or
without rhyme

nearly a decade, and i
still see your first revolution
around me. who’s the sun? us both
so new
like yesterday’s tomorrow

i still know how to linger.
a gift is given when you let go.

i forgive you, yeah
boy i love you
and i found you
under my bed, i kept
you safe, despite your swiss nature
all these many sunsets
and each and every blessed
sunrise

amen