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I'm throwing blankets on the flames. He started it, built it from sticks I cut for him. Again. Half of me says you know you want to fry, the other is screaming how can you.
I saw him and he looked at me--eyes into eyes through a tunnel of tight space--and I knew like yesterday that every day always he'll be there behind my eyelids, in my tears, crying in my veins.
We sat at a table alone. His shoulders went the width of the table and his big hands crumbled into bones before me, I couldn't stop him, didn't touch him-every single one of his broken needs sank into me, filled my bursting lungs. He said, just be with me. I said I'll be with you. The skin on his face lined and his chest heaved and words ground out through his white-white teeth. I longed to carve the grief off his cheeks. Peel the pain from his lips. Catch the flying splinters of his heart and nail them, mold them, hold them back together with my bleeding fingers.
The knowing between us gets worse. I could just, I should not, I still want, it's futile.
He cried.
I am with him.
He said thank you for being my friend.
Through my mind a thousand retorts beat rat-tat-tat against my forehead and then pulsed there, hard and hot, melting my makeup. I hold still. Breathe, and wait.
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