When I was oblivious and brash
And you were flesh on a raging stovetop
I could never find
just the right
shade of blood orange
to paint my words upon you with.

I remember
the way you dug at your skin
and how
your eyes seemed to throb and breathe
when you talked
But--
most of all, dear--
I remember some girl
awkwardly enveloped in the aura
of a woman

And I remember
your mouth curving
and you,
making sweet music--
melding the flavors with your hands
for the first time.

The light fell on your browbone
And sat there,
fat and white like a dollop
of cream.
You didn’t move--
you were still and faithful,
bent over the keys like a laboring
mother,
breathing like a hurricane,
crashing over chords with
verocity
only in animals.

And I remember
mourning on a bed with you
before the sun had a chance
to rise
And become an egg yolk
in a yellow sky
we were too afraid to
squint into.

You pulled me out of
pig-pink sheets,
told me to turn on the oven.
I sat in the dim of a kitchen--
dirty linoleum--
I couldn’t breathe,
my lungs were wooden casks,
you floated in on
big feet
with half the toenail polish
chipped off.

I always did notice how
light caught your skin and hair
in the loveliest of ways.

Like
black-and-white photographs
or something
from the fog-dreams
you can’t remember.

And I guess
what I
really remember
most
is

That feeling,
that late-night
loss of
faith.
The feeling of death,
the decay and the smiling moon
telling us that
our hearts are
so easily broken
and our minds are
so easily
crazied.

Yes,
what I remember most is
feeling almost 300 years old
in the light of your gaze.
Yes,
what I remember most is
hurt
and
sad
and
bitter
and
love
and
songs
and
hands
and
makeup
and
movies
and
laughter
and
hatred
and
knowledge
and
God.

I remember
inescapable aggressiveness--
wanting to kiss you--
wanting to plant my lips upon
your whole soul
like a blessing--
wanting you to be my mother
wanting you to
rack my bones
with truths I already know.

Sometimes when you slept,
I’d just run my knuckle
over your eyebrow
and I’d walk through corridors
in my head
and imagine all the places in the world
and how they’d be s***
without you here.
And I remember
crying a little about that.