maybe he was just born on a night where
they left the windows open and a storm
crept into his soul because now he is all
bad dreams and tornadoes, he is sitting on your
front step and lighting a cigarette even though
he would never let you touch one because
“they’ll kill you,” he said,
he is leaning back on his elbows and
giving you that crooked smile that
reminds you of an empty blue sky
and something in you hurts
in kinda the same way as when
rainclouds hurt before they break open
and you sit down next to him and
look out at your mother’s garden
and you want to ask him
if he’s ever really going to be happy
or you’re supposed to pretend you
don’t know that he’s going dark
again
and you want to ask him if the
first time he kissed you, he meant it
or he just meant to hurt his future self
because good god but did he flinch
when you cried in the morning because
nothing sets you off like
how you want him but he’d never let
anything real happen
and you want to ask if maybe
when he was born he cried so loud
he woke the dead and now
a ghost lives with him in his
brainstem
you want to ask if maybe the problem
is really that he doesn’t feel anything
much less love
or it’s actually just that
you’re not good enough
but god, this boy is a spinning top and
a bad choice wrapped up in one, a sense of disaster in the
trail behind him,
he makes you feel exactly the same way
as when you were seven and at the top of a hill
on your brother’s bike and halfway down
the brakes stopped working
but you sit there and your tongue is tied
and he’s so incredibly unsolvably sad inside and
even if it’s more than a friendship but less than dating at
least it’s something so even though you want to speak
you say
nothing.
yousharknotpass
2087
ellievsbear
vaporwave
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
