[yinyefs]

in my memories, we are forever thirteen. the sun is forever shining, the grass forever green, the wind cool and crisp against our laughing faces. i keep your eyes in a photograph, trace over the softness in your gaze when you looked at me as you thought i wasn’t looking back, but always was. i still am.

i keep your smile, special for me, so sweet that your eyes squinted and my expression could only mirror yours. i keep the tense set of your shoulders as you told me, back turned, that you once called a suicide hotline and were put on hold for thirty minutes, and even now my stomach swoops as it settles in all over again that i could have lost you, i almost lost you, i have lost you now.

once, out of some masochistic nostalgia, i walked down the path we used to take home from our school, stopping at your house. the familiar route felt wrong without your hand on top of my head—armchair height, you called me. your door was closed, the windows shuttered. i stood there for the longest time, feeling indescribably young as i faced the looming bricks behind which your father beat you, back in the body of my thirteen-year-old self scanning your skin for new bruises. i was so desperate to save you. you were so desperate to save me.

but our age betrayed us, and there was nothing we could have done.

sometimes, i wonder if it is because i held onto you so tightly that you pulled away. if my worry was so thick that it choked you, if my care was so overwhelming that it twisted into suffocation. like the child i was, i naïvely believed that love was the solution, but it wasn’t. i couldn’t love you into loving me, into loving yourself, into loving life, and i have failed to keep you safe, failed to keep you by my side, failed.

yet the clock hands move on, whether i like it or not. i cannot let my life stop just because you have left it; i cannot stop walking forward just because you have let go of my hand. the bracelet you gave me that was once a comforting anchor has grown too heavy, and i cannot let it, let you, drag me down into the depths of the ocean any further.

it is far past time to let you go; i will love you in my memories, where you must remain.

[yinyefs]

i still have your number in my contacts. it festers in my pockets, follows me no matter how far i stray from the russet bricks of the school we once shared. it no longer displays your profile picture; part of me misses it even as part of me is thankful. i don’t think i could stand opening my phone to see your smiling face knowing i will never be able to see it again.

i am unsure of whether the ten digits are even still your number. it doesn’t matter either way. they'll forever be burned into my memory, forever linked to your voice, forever tied to your laughter, stifled under your covers as you fought not to wake your brother when the sun hadn’t yet risen.

more days than i would like to admit, i find my thumbs hovering over the call button. if you ever need anything, anything at all, find me here, you said when you gave your number to me all those years ago. does that offer still hold true when we’re no longer the children we were, no longer children at all? when we haven’t spoken for long enough that i missed your brother’s graduation ceremony and you now laugh at jokes that are not mine? when what i need is you to tell me that you’re okay, i'm okay, we’re okay? when what i need is you, just you, your voice in my ear, your presence holding my hand as i sit in my room alone, knees drawn and back to the wall pretending i am leaning on you?

our message history is unchanged. the last text you sent me: “i love you.” did you? do you? i did; i do.

[yinyefs]

you didn't ask, is the thing.

if you'd asked i would have said no, and you wouldn't have done it—or at least i don't think you would have. i hope you wouldn't have. do i know you at all? did i? i don't know. you didn't ask, so i didn't say no.

i didn't say yes either. you did it twice. is silence permission? i don't want to be an overplayed video in high school phys ed. you made me afraid. i hate you. you were there for me. i hate you. you made me hate you.

you didn't ask and i didn't say no so now i can't say anything at all. you made me make myself small.

you didn't ask and i didn't say no, but i’m grateful. i’m grateful you didn't ask and i didn't say no and you didn't stop anyway. i hate you for leaving yourself a way out.

was it romantic to you?

i have nightmares.

[yinyefs]

i lay awake, though late at night, an empty room, but you’re in sight. no matter how i hate the truth, my heart belongs to only you.

despite all of the lies you told, all the promises you broke, all the love you’ve never shown, still i cannot let you go.

i wish to spread my wings and fly, far from you and all your lies. but though i know i deserve better, to your post, i’m trapped and tethered.

[yinyefs]

i miss you like the afternoon sun and freshly mown grass. like the cool metal of your ring on my thumb, heavy and solid and there, like the molten amber of brown eyes behind thick frames, like the space between my fingertips and the weight of your hand on my head—armrest height, you called me. i’ve grown taller now, and so have you. you've changed your glasses, changed your rings, changed, and the sun has grown dark and the grass sere. i miss you like youth, like sepia photographs with corners faded from love. time will never turn back for us, but i will always turn back for you, crowded hallways, crowded streets, empty homes. i miss you like you never could miss me.

[yinyefs]

you used to dream of being a soccer player.

you used to dream of being

you used to dream

you used to be

they say people who commit suicide often regret it right before they die. i wonder if you felt that way when the ground rose up to meet your head. i wonder if you felt comfort. i don’t know which is worse to think about: the possibility that your last feeling was regret, or anticipation. i hope you went out happy in some way or another. i think of you every day.

[yinyefs]

cocsa

you were only just a child.

you are still just a child.

i am a child

no longer.

[yinyefs]

blackout poetry

black sharpie scratches out scars printed pages like the knife i never could saw through my own chest. if i could i would break open my ribs and offer you my pumping heart in my hands. i have no words of my own so i borrow page 58 of a study of electrolytes in the human body for now, but i look at alexander maccrowley’s lecture on covalent compounds, paper dark as night with words like stars, and i wonder what it would be like to sing.

[yinyefs]

you talk and you talk and you talk

and you take and you take and you take

until all that’s left of me

is the leaves that escaped

the rake

of your claws, you

eat me whole and wipe your

lips with my skin.

i have no mouth

and you have no ears, so i

collect your sins,

assuage your fears

and dry your tears

as i fall and you look

away.

[yinyefs]

a steel curtain shutters between us, impact of metal on concrete echoing like the first thuds of sod on a coffin. i shrink into myself in a reverse metamorphosis, yearn to go back to my cocoon, back to your womb where maybe then you will finally love me again like you used to.

[yinyefs]

there is a hole in my heart where your smile used to be and a chill in my hand where your palm used to press and a lightness in my lap where your head used to lay, black hair shining gold in the sunlight and brown eyes staring up at me like i was the only thing you could see. you once said that i looked at you like i loved you long before i first said the words. you looked at me like loving me was never even a question.