There is something
too heavy about secrets.
Yet still I take yours in my arms
and handle with care
or try to, try to keep
your fragile secrets from
shattering.

I used to keep them stowed away in
glass jars on the windowsill
like fireflies. But secrets aren’t
meant to be left as if
preserved,
as if to someday
lose track of.

So I wear them like medals
around my neck, catch
them glinting in the sunlight,
proud that what are yours
are now mine too.

When I hold the medals in sweaty hands,
the weighty metal melts between
my fingers like glue, caught
in the spaces that before were
empty, sticking to me
like your secrets
have stuck me to you.

I remember watching one yellow rain boot float away
as I stood beneath a sky colored charcoal-gray.
I remember my dogs in the corner, shaking like I thought I ought to be.
I remember losing power; the candles my father then lit.
I remember when they went out.
I remember bumping into my brother in the hallway. Screaming.
I remember falling asleep to the bright strikes that lit up my room when
no one else was left awake. I could see them even when I shut my eyes.

It flashes in my mind—this flood of emotions
that came with my first thunderstorm.
I remember the rain. 

Squeezed between friends
on a stool like a pedestal as
the night grows old,
the floor feels like it’s shrinking, like
I’m shrinking, wasting away and
wasted.

Perhaps this is how she felt,
lost among the ones she loves the most,
changed by the taste of hard liquor
that burns into brain.

Did you watch them pour the
drinks like I always
do? Or did you forget this once?

When I’ve run out of the words to say to you,
but the light is still green,
I keep on going.
A green light means go and I’ve always
been one to follow directions.

I wait for a stop sign that never comes,
or the yellow glow of a “warning”.
In my head, they’re there, but in
front of me all I see is a road that
stretches for miles and we’re
cruising,

for now.

But I’ve been in one too many
accidents to let this one end with
the front end of your car crumpled
against me.

The endless green lights make my
heart race and I can’t tell if it’s a side
effect of speeding or something
else entirely.
I want nothing
but to put my hands over yours
on the wheel.

The room smelt of last night’s Chinese food.
Socks were strewn about in mismatched pairs
and I wondered why you’d needed so many--
we’d only been here a week.

I thought, a twin bed is far from romantic
but I took the leap anyway,
your bed was lofted so high
that coming up from the ground was
strangely exciting.

And so I perched on your comforter with your pillows
between me and that hard plaster wall.
Here we were, surrounded by socks and
books and fluorescent lights and friends,

falling in and out love,
becoming new people,
becoming people,
becoming.

I came to your room to
sit with you on your high twin bed
and laugh at the too bright-lights
and your smelly Chinese food,
I came here to your room to become
your friend,
and here I have become so much
more than that.