he will promise you that his brother carries entire cemeteries under his wrists. he can see the tombstones against the pale skin there, almost feel the statues of angels with smooth, white eyes and cracked finger tips luring him in. but it’s not like there are parts of his body that aren’t shrines; ships have wrecked in the hollows of his bones, seawater spilling down his clavicles in rivulets, parallel to nerves like open roads, freckles like star clusters guiding him home.
it’s a miracle but they overlap like waves, folding and crashing. there aren’t coastlines to guide them home, just temples built from their sacrifices, burning crimson and vermillion. there is smoke in the air. there is always smoke.
he will tell you about how popsicles stained his tongue in the summer at noon but tasted metallic and angry when it became blood the same night. he’ll tell you about riding shotgun and looking anywhere but at the broken boy who drove them straight into the fog, the static of the radio rippling through them like rain and that's when he realised why they name people after storms. but now that the boy is drowning and who is he to sink.
but he’ll still scream, swear at the angels that it’s all a fucking miracle that they’re still there, lungs halfway in water, hands grabbing at each others clothes and just like a fairytale they’re fighting for the same air.
it’s a miracle,
but then again
even God has some regrets, right?
