In the larger picture, I'll always recommend sleep.
We were throwing rocks at cemented walls
Because that's what I felt like doing.
You asked me to leave my bag down, and pick up bricks
And throw them until one smashed loud enough
To make the buzzing in my head go out.
Back in 11th grade a boy I thought I liked pointed out the exact
Corner from the street he grew up in
Where his friends and him were truly happy. Sometimes I do not need you, I need your elbow, knees, bits of shirt
For the exact same reason.
We were hiding out, cops and robbers,
And going places you know and places I'm learning to know.
You knew them since you were younger and this was the edge of the street
As you knew it from your window
I know them since I'm older and I'm at the edge of the street
And long before I ever stood here
You looked out of the window to remember.
We were building stories, secret ones
'And if they ask'
'And should I tell'
'And does it really matter?'
I asked if I could buy lots of glass cups and smash them
And you said yes
I asked if you would stand in the sand and let
Ants walk over your feet for a photo you said yes
Yes I will yes I can no this isn't how you wanted it
I asked if it- if you know, I- really mattered
And you said yes.
Because she told me to not use qualifiers,
I imagined how to spell hate without making it sound so negative.
Miss, 'Yesterday, Thursday I thought of killing myself because
A. I wouldn't die
B. If I died, okay.
It's not that I don't appreciate that you value me
It's just that this is the wrong end of the equation,
I'm not trying to arrive at the x reasons you love me.
Miss, I'm just really trying to figure out y.'
Between two rocks, I asked you
What if okay meant I couldn't write again.
You told me writing was anything.
I told you in a flash, when the rock chipped the wall as a fullstop,
I thought of a poem:
'Sometimes, you need broken stones for the building.'
You smiled, knowing that isn't the poem.
I smiled because I knew you knew
That wasn't the poem.
The poem was the smash,
The deep breaths,
The sound of a bag being lifted off the pavement,
And hearing it break into rain.
I have a closet where everything is in place
And I have a key to the closet that I've lost twice in a row
One time my roommate told me it was under me
The second time it was where it was supposed to be
Only my roommate's gift of balloons was getting in the way.
