This October Breeze

We’ve killed it,
Having lost what it was to be twelve—
That terror,
When your red plaid shirt was…
My lungs would prefer to deflate
But this October breeze makes a vegetable out of me
My body a player piano beside the bulk of you
The final offering
You the dream fallen farthest from the truth,
You too hard too big too blank in my head
Dead air hard and narcotic against my desperate ear
A child’s need, its idiot’s offering
Pop-tart thoughts and nail polish insecurity
All the poetry we’ve wasted,
And there are still words we’ll never use
We know that we should, I know that I would
But we never changed faces
Why are you practicing, what are you practicing
My arms useless and embarrassing
The way our tracks never crossed, our every train derailed
Your hand cold on my back
I guess you’re not the only one
A tired wind through the sand of a listless desert
Our hearts sleep when we can’t
Enthusiastic air conditioning finishing for us
Everything our past had not
Nothing sparks
Even your silence won’t touch me
The hair on all of your audience toes
Your hatchet face
Your glow dust-encrusted
Its splinters littering the floor of my mind
Weightless, over
I wondered whether your eyes ever light
A sleep dance, machine exchange
I could cry as easily as kiss
This horrible, inevitable
Our ashes dissolved into the skin I already cannot feel
No space left in it for shame
I watch you sleeping for any flash of prone
Your lips a bruise I cannot feel
Most alone in that moment of most close
Two dying flames clawing into each other for the last match
More alone with you than without you
Our string too taut, without the energy to snap
Apathy, humility
We’ve killed it