Stars are the prettiest when they

i love you. doesn't that mean anything? of course it does. it means everything, don't you know?

and you love me. you know i do. it isn't a question. not even now. not from you.

you promised me forever. was that a lie? i meant it. i still mean it. my love is yours forever. for as long as my broken heart beats, and beyond.

but you're going to leave anyway. i have to. i'm sorry. i would stay if i could. but somewhere out there lies a gravestone waiting already with my name written on it ( but not yours, and i thank whoever is listening for that ) and i do not have the strength to uncarve a stone.

why you? why do we have to be the tragedy? because the gods are cruel, or at least uncaring. because the earth is parched with bloodthirst. because all the other lovers who were tragedies asked the same question and received no answers.

the saddest universe is not the one where i love you but you do not love me.

the saddest universe is not the one where i love you and you love me but the gravity of fate tugs us apart.

the saddest universe is not even this one where i love you and you love me and we lose each other over and over and over and over and over again.

in the saddest universe we have never walked in the same place at the same time.

in the saddest universe i have never seen my eyes mirrored in yours and you have never felt your fingers brush against mine.

in all the infinite possibilities of time and space and fate this is a universe where i know the color of your eyes and the shape of your name on my lips and the echo of your voice in my bones.

and for that i am grateful to the kindness of this universe no matter how many times we must lose each other over and over and over and over and over again.

at least in this universe we have something to lose.

if you kiss me hard enough to draw blood i will thank you and ask you for another.

if you hold me hard enough to carve bruises i will thank you and ask you to hold me tighter.

love me to hurt me. hurt me to love me. it's all the same to me.

i have known from the beginning that i am not meant for gentle things. i have never been meant for gentle things.

and this is the best love a warring soul can hope for: a love that hurts that hurts that hurts

but at least a love that only hurts me.

rest your wings, soldier mine. you were made to fly, i know, but not like this. the sun above is not meant to be your seduction. the ocean below is not meant to be your enemy. the jetstream is not meant to be your companion. Icarus was a warning, not a challenge to see how high you can soar.

lay down your weapons, soldier mine. you fight so well, i know, but not every battle is yours. your fists are not damned to be perpetual weapons. your scars are not damned to mark you in disgrace. your blood is not damned to spill upon a sword. Achilles was a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual on how to fight to your death.

soldier mine, you are not Atlas nor Icarus nor Achilles.

you are only you, soldier mine, and i am only yours, and we are only this here now.

pity these blue-eyed boys gave mercy on these blue-eyed boys because the world will have no mercy for them and they are born with almost etched in their bones.

he almost loved him. he almost kissed him. he almost held him.

he almost followed him. he almost stopped him. he almost caught him.

he almost saved him. he almost made it. he almost came home.

he almost—      he almost—           they almost—

2. Leave no body to be found. Fill an empty grave with dirt. Let the world forget on its own.

3. Give him a name. Give him twenty. Tell him a new history. Teach him a new language. Teach him five. Give him a mission.

Let him go.

4. Take him back. Let him go. Take him back. Let him go. Take him back. Let him go.

He comes back on his own feet.

5. Give him blood and steel and pain until his muscles forget the difference between bone and iron and his skin craves the kiss of leather straps like it craves the touch of gentle fingers.

Drain his veins dry and empty and fill his heart with something new and let the poison spill like lifeblood.

6. Give him pain. Take it away. Bring it back. Take it away. Bring it back. Bring it back.

7. Give him a new name. Give him a new past. Destroy it all.

8. Tear him away from everything he knows. Let him watch his world collapse. Let him see his name wither away. Let him strangle hope with his hands.

9. Make him beg for mercy for respite for death.

10. Deny him.

it was you. it was you. it was always you.

and i always knew i would have died a hundred times over without you.

you are echoes in the empty chambers of my heart screams in the air that clamour in my lungs a nightmare repeating like a skipping record you are still seventy years of empty spaces a ghost that still lives and breathes and screams a memory that lingers in my every footstep

i never did learn how to live without you.

and i should have known when my heart stubbornly kept on beating that you were not gone.

someone once told me      the only things we get to choose      are a hero's death      or a villain's life.

so they said. so they said. so they say.

but no one ever told me      what happens when a good man       goes to war      and becomes the demon.

but no one ever told me      you can die a hero     and be resurrected     to a villain's afterlife.

but my broken heart, i pray that somewhere in the vast unending stretch of worlds there is still a version of you that does not know the taste of gunmetal and still a version of me that does not know the sound of breaking bone and still a version of us that does not know the feeling of tragedy.

my broken heart, i hope in that world we taste happines that isn't tinged with iron and rust. in that world we speak legends that do not carry our names within them. in that world we blush pink with blood that isn't choked with ice chips and frost.

my broken heart, i promise even if in that world i do not get to hold you when you wake and i do not get to kiss you when you breathe and i do not get to make you smile when you cry

i would let you go, my broken heart so that you may be whole again.

if the fates conspire that only one of us may live, then lover, it must be you.

i will save you the grand speeches about how you are good and deserving. you are. you are. you are, but in the end, that is not the reason why.

the world may call me brave or strong or selfless but lover, you know the truth don't you?

in the end, i am only more afraid of facing a world without you than i am of facing death of anything.

in the end, i am only too weak to be the one left behind to pick up the pieces of a broken life a broken promise a broken heart and keep on bleeding when the blood in your heart is already dry.

i'm sorry. i'm sorry. but will you let me be selfish one last time?

can i ask you to live for me? to face the what i feared most so that i might find peace in my eternal sleep with a smile upon my face?

if it is cruel of me to ask, then i beg you to forgive me. or curse my name and hate me if you must, only live.

it is january 2nd and the air is a little freer without the sacred weight of the untouched loading every trembling motion, without the lofty need for newness clouding every restless moment like a warm puff of breath in the january cold.

it is january 2nd and i relax like a slow exhale at the end of a long breath held two heartbeats too long— a little tight at the edges but not too much, not yet.

it is january 2nd. the year is still young and i have time.

foolish heart, do you think i do not know? i have known from the moment that i laid eyes upon you and the devouring void in my chest woke up and named itself wanting and stretched and stretched and never stopped stretching that you would be the death of me.

foolish heart, i am not afraid.

it was always going to get me killed, this life of mine this life of yours this life of ours. and if you are going to be the death of me ( you are, you are, you are ) i would rather die for wanting you than die for hating you. i would rather die for the hope of having you than die for the fear of having you.

be my sun, my winds, my ocean and i will make myself icarus and i will find my joy in your blinding light and i will find my freedom in your touch and i will find my death in your waiting arms.

and you can melt me down like a candle under the flame or you can cast me about like a leaf in the skies or you can swallow me whole like a memory.

The puppy is no longer young but he is still small and fits in the crook of my arm like a sleeping babe all sleep-warm and honey-slow blinking up at me with wide black eyes.

I hold his tiny face in my cupped careful palms press a kiss into the wisp-light fur at the nape of his neck and tell him like a vow: You are so good and so precious and so beloved.

And a soft, gentle thing in the cavern of my chest slowly rises to reply heartbeat-quiet: We are. We are. We are.

This story is as simple as can be. You were here and then you were not.

And all that happened in between was a secret for only you and me and now that you are no there it is a secret just for me and me alone.

And someday when I too am not here it will be a secret for the winds and the stars and the dust that became of our bones and nobody else.

i am green green green down to my breath and blood and bones.

green with envy for all the beautiful things in the world that i cannot hold in my hands or press against my lips or swallow down whole.

green with sick all festering hurts i don't know how to heal and spreading poison i don't know the antidote for and hand-me-down aches i don't know the names of.

green with greed, the yawning void deep in my belly that wants and wants and wants and wants and wants from the day i was born screaming with want.

green with permission: yes please, come here, do as you please. i never did learn how to say no and mean it.

green like plants, like spring growth and summer leaves like basil and mint on kitchen counter tops like haworthia and pothos and monstera.

i am green green green down to my breath and blood and bones—

but maybe someday i will learn to hold the whole rainbow in my body.