Per Aspera Ad Astra
asphalt glitters like stars
if you’re looking at just the right
angle.
2 am but still sun warmed on my back
he was mathematics and i was all romantics
even the ways we tried to
end our lives 90 days prior showed that
him with his calculated weights
everything planned, neat and meticulous as
my grandmothers kitchen
mine a slash of mess
that i never considered who would
clean up.
we were complicit
in one another’s
complementary demise.
but could not
contain our own.
Irony in the message, tucked in
Edith Hamilton’s Mythology -
“don’t look back.”
but the past is never finished
2013
so ignorant to the world,
watching Japanese cartoons on half volume
as his aunts cats licked my ears
talking about death without
really knowing what that void means
smoking pall malls out of a half open window
blowing smoke through the screens
thought we knew everything.
i never realized how scared he was of me
back then
probably even now
i hope he knows
he was my refuge and sanity
the color of the sky right before
the sun rises
he gave hope and home
in a hopeless time
laying on sun soaked driveways in June
hands close but never touching
talking about getting out
how to get out of the county line
the one divine tie to everything
my family
his family
the crushing weight of
his expectations and
my own disappointment
but we didn’t know then
that staring at the stars we would both touch
we would crash back down
and crack into separate pieces
like porcelain
on my kitchen floor.
from the stars
to the thorns
the thorns always win
in the end.