Remember waking up with me in your arms, a bundle of books and laughter and quiet irony that somebody thought would be a good idea to turn into flesh and bone and limbic system? You’d kiss the very tiptop of my forehead where the hair follicles are still that blonde of childhood and then run your fingers lightly down my cheek. I remember turning up to you with eyes only half open and the sunlight falling across your face in irregular little rectangles and whatever song you’d been humming to me late last night still playing in the background, mixed with other morning sounds. I’d look down then and smile at myself, me in your old high school sweatshirt falling just past my perpetually-skinned knees and the bright green socks I begged daddy to buy me for my seventh birthday.
I remember how you kept trying to change what was inside, how my body composition wasn’t living up to your standards but no matter what I did I couldn’t bleed anything besides stubbornness and I couldn’t breathe out anything but hopefulness and maybe in the end we just weren’t made of the same thing, maybe we were moonbeam and lightning after all. I watched the moonlight scar your face in perfect rectangles, and I turned off the radio, and I slipped out of the sweatshirt and wedged it in your arms the morning I decided I would rather live with daddy. I can’t remember your touch anymore.
light night 