I left you months before you left this
planet, on a winter night I promised
we'd spend together. My overnight bag
beside me, we walked together through
blind-white flurries, words lost in boreal
winds. But I cracked like rotten wood at
the doorstep, turning away to abandon you
to cavernous rooms and a hearth for one.
Heart hollow, unable to grasp my mist-like
fears, I locked my steps, never pivoted back.
The film-thin snow tore like skin, one set
of bootprints back where two had come.

You’re more poet than I'll ever be, in
text and tongue, with flame and glass,
those razor-sharp moments you catch—
all the times I blink and miss—sliced
off like corneas, pressed between pages
like slides to hold them transparent to the
world. I miss that warmth I don't deserve,
flowing from within you and glowing
now under real sunlight, not this bloated,
dying red orb that hangs above these
stone crypts we call flats.

Even now, I wonder how you remember me,
which moments of ours you've clasped like
dandelion seeds plucked from the breeze.

Do you remember how I fell away
instead of rising up to meet you, or
do you remember how I held your
hand when we shared our dreams of ghosts?