we could have faced the world together—
it would have been like knowing god,
even if only a broken divinity.
take what we can get.

for all the bad weeks,
the baby burdens pressing into your ribs,
and the heavier ones—
the kind that needed angels,
or strong whiskey, or just water,
or the kind that made you whisper into the dark,
leave voicemails to an emptiness
that only listens, like cats do—
i should have been there to pick up.

i should have materialized in your room,
because you beckoned,
because all fallen angels are alone—
and i know the weight of that ancient loneliness.

why are the truths hidden between us,
spirit-armed, hands steady?
is the weight of the present too much?
but what of the future, after the bars close,
the future where our parents die—
my mother, your father.
there will be things left unsaid,
that will haunt for decades.
grief coming slow, then all at once.
the world turning,
getting bleaker, more restless,
talking down to us
as if it never birthed us at all.

—could you ever trust me to hold you again?

i studied every shape of you,
and that should have been enough to know
before you, i was a ghost in stasis—
no beginning or end.
i didn’t know love—
a stray dog that can’t be pet,
barking without reason,
howling, maddened, biting too,
because you dared me to,
because you came too close.

you don’t know how much i wanted to grab you,
keep you, hold you in that candlelit room, forever—
catch your whispers, play

—-who saved who?

for I once knew love only as a weapon,
and then you were there for me, endlessly,
with a patience that could wilt flowers,
you held the mirror to me, and
I was unholy.