just outside

little boy, with a smile unpaid for

little boy, held and careless and cruel and beautiful

i was once with you under smoke, and the lights would drift by like sirens,

i should have known when deer cross-bound and illuminated under dark

when you touched me on stained cushions, hidden beneath windows

when you couldn't call, couldn't speak,

when you brought another far from home, but i drove to you anyway,

because at least tonight would be different

it didn't hurt when i left

because you were never real

my life was nothing, detached, like watching

and you could have tried to help

but our words were rambled poetry in a dim bar, voices slow and fake,

our words were cigarettes and lies and pushing away shyness,

pretending we could live like real people

and it was a play, dead before imaginations awoke, dead before you could help me climb away

i think sometimes about the dead flower you gave to me,

in my jean pocket crumpled, purple, dusty

and how it amazed me because it almost felt real

like everything could live in a romanticized past, in youth and love

what if we never experience these,

and the dizziness that spread between my legs like girltalk in carpeted bedrooms and laughter and desire,

waiting an eternity for a life really lived, waiting to feel lovable and be loved,

and yet the years pass and we die like flowers never bloomed,

and we are forgotten and learn not to care,

so we write and write and remember,

now watching the past like we used to crave tomorrow

now we live torn in the pockets of unbroken girls, crumpled, dusty, dead

what i would give to hear our conversations now, what i would give to feel your hand take mine in a theater, like children, feeling