#desperately tagging

(To the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody)

I look at you with your heart like a music box and your eyes like stars and you jump into my lap. You smell like denim and coconuts when you giggle and ask me to tell you a story. Here is one. This is the one about the only child who spent six hours painting a rusty toy firetruck she found in the backyard because it looked like her sister-- all hard edges and scary patches and things that you were too young to be. This is the one about how you used to hold on to her pajama pants to help you breathe at night. She was not an only child anymore. This is the one where you got older. You stopped wearing long skirts, because once a boy with red hair told you that he deserved more. Here is the thing about stars: they go out. This is the one about how I found you crouched over my suitcase, something sad and gray curling from the space behind your lungs, coughing between apologies. I rubbed your back, even though this thing behind your eyes was not you. get it out get it out (get it out). I look at you and think, my sister is going to change the world. I look at you and think, my sister is very frail.