KASET BF

I was only a girl of sixteen, but you were a boy of eleven.

It was spring & the garden beds in my front garden were bursting to life. I remember, I was embarrassed that you saw me in my school uniform that day. I was collecting letters from the mail box in the evening & you must have seen me. I dropped my letters on the side walk & you bent down & gathered them up for me. My heart froze & I remember I could see the reflection of my flowers in your eyes as you handed them back to me. Maybe you were coming back. I told him I was searching for a soccer ball. Oh my wind-swept haired boy. How I miss you. That night I thought maybe I'll grow up too. I realise now, that I won't. Now I still write to you, every weekend.
Please, write back. He was nothing but coffee-table sex & a fake smile.

I wipe my nose with the back of my hand.

I think about how real you are & I wonder if you cry tears or something much more beautiful. I think about how if you look long enough, you can see the ugliness in beautiful things. I think about the stupid things that only make sense while they're happening; like inside jokes, like the ridiculous events in my dreams, like how loving you seemed like an okay idea at the time. I consider saying, "I think about how my dad disappointed me again." How I made sure the way I said goodnight to him was said in the bitchiest tone possible. How he sounded heartbroken when he said goodnight back. How I guilt tripped myself after he said that. How I always guilt trip myself over everything. I think about how I'm tangled in my headphones & in my other messes & about how the freckles on your shoulders suggest that your mind's all over the place, too. I think about the way pens give out & I wonder if I myself should give giving up a try. Sometimes I think about the boy who could always tell when I was high by my bloodshot, half closed eyes & my half working mind. He'd half laugh & I'd laugh too, but I only half understood why. Sometimes life depends on something as simple as a crack in the paint or the words that I don't (can't) say. I'm always this volcano, but sometimes I wonder when I'll finally explode.

Pigeons had dropped their letters in the winter sky.

The other children said he had crazy eyes & made fun of how his mother dressed him & refused to understand why he liked strange colors & would not play with his toys. They misread his language & thought he conjured demons in the quiet glade where no birds sang. But the boy only shrugged & smiled quietly to himself at their puzzles. You see, he knew the gift of imperfection, its fierce magic & how to catch beauty & turn bad luck into an omen. They could not get used to the voices he heard, & were scared of the way his hands made music from plain air.
They could only write "I'm sorry" so many times before it no longer sound like words.

He traced their faces with tiny delicate fingers.

Looking back now, I see the gray skies. I see what I left & why I left it behind. I've heard it all before ; to take your days one step at a time, not to jump ahead & never plan your life. I'll pull you under & drag you back.
Suffocate you in my so called love, crush your believes & hold you down. I thought that blissful death was upon me, but instead, I’m treading in an endless sea.

You used to cry diamonds & bleed rubies.

I am plucking out my veins so that you might have a comfortable place to sleep, nestled along the curled edges of my skin. I cannot feel my way past the weight of you, cannot think past the needles & thread sensation of my bones, clicking together & stretching apart to accommodate. You are everywhere, taking over the most beautiful terrible parasite. Memories flow through my veins & drip from the tips of my fingers like water from a faucet. This can't be right, but it’s certainly not wrong. I don't care for fancy things, or take part in a precious race.