star

If I close my eyes it feels like I'm still there.

I can hear the clatter of plates and the clamber

to be first in line for breakfast,

The basketball court is slick with freshly-fallen rain, black nail polish hardened into enamel after spilling weeks ago lies on my desk, forgotten and right in front of my eyes, as I watch them play that game on my tiny screen, their feet sliding

She pressed the cherry into my hand,

Smiling, it didn’t mush,

Didn’t leak red juice all over my summer-calloused palm

Like fake blood, too bright to be the real thing.

Darkness falls quickly now,

the feeble sky overpowered by the black pull of eternity.

Snow turns to rain, rain turns to mud,

and every month, I bleed and I cry.

It's almost Christmas, but

Your eyes are dark like midnight, filled with millions of tiny stars

and I don't know what to say to you, what to do

because when I see you,

my

heart 

breaks,

not in two but in so many scattered pieces,

We talk as the twilight turns to dark ash, 

sit out on the porch and catch fireflies in mason jars--

only for a second, then let them fly.

You tell me about friends I barely know, and I nod and smile at you,