when people ask me if i can dance or sing i say i dont know rhythm but lately ive found my own cadence and its interesting: how far you go when you don’t realize you’re moving

i was twelve when you died
but sixteen when you were gone

i woke up and stopped looking for you in the house you made a home. i woke up and no longer had to remind myself you weren’t around. i woke up and your existence was based solely on your absence

you stayed my favorite person but became my favorite subject. everything that was because of you was suddenly for you; every part of me transformed into reminders that half of my anything was created from all of your everything

its christmas soon and i remember evergreen mixed with your jaipur homme. i remember money greens and marlboro reds; i remember you lifting me to put the angel on the tree and a star on the next

i remember staying up past midnight on every eve you worked; because other children needed a santa but no fiction could be better to me than a reality of you with a day off

i can’t remember the gifts you gave me–just the way i never wanted for anything more but to fall asleep next to you during chow yun fat movies; chastising mom in the kitchen and corralling the boys upstairs

i was five when i asked if it was me that made you work so hard. if i could trade all the toys and stuffed animals for more days off. i was twelve when i thought life was about luxury. thirteen when everything i wanted became everything i used to have. twenty-one; and the thought of you has still been my last one every night.

i woke up and all of our routines became stories
i woke up and all of our traditions became memories

i woke up and the universe found the only way to keep you
from the christmases you promised me were always ours

i woke up and my nightmares stopped being dreams

i miss the drives in your car: the books in my hand, the taste of you left on my lips–reading you stories inbetween kisses, tracing your hands with my fingertips–bookmarking pages with leftover twenty dollar bills and lipstick tubes

stolen glances at stop signs
wondering when it was that you actually became mine

i miss the sound of the engine; the feel of tarmac beneath the ground you moved, the poems leftover on my tongue while i traced the parts of you you told me you didn’t understand how to love

i miss the way my laughter slid inside of yours: the way my smile followed your name–the way you transcribed your childhood through your fingertips because you were too afraid of your lips

i miss the me that forged from you mixed with mine

i wonder what you think of those nights that simmered into mornings; the days that passed like the way you looked at me when i didn’t

you tell me you love me now like i loved you then

but fairytales don’t last and part of me wonders what part of this was ever happy if i never asked for an after

part of growing older means the people you love become people you loved

part of growing older means eventually everyone who left are the ones you forgot you asked to leave

part of growing older means being gracious enough to thank you for the memories
but experienced enough to not make the same mistake
twice