i wanted to tell you

that night we spent in your dads pick up

with the stars above us and dew drops below

i traced the words along the skin between your wrist and elbow

hoping you couldn’t read brail

earlier that morning

we had sat and soaked in the sun underneath the delicate green leaves of the woods

you brought berries and a blanket and i brought cherries

you told me your favorite song and taught me the words and then we both cried

it reminded you of your mom

she left a while back

you still missed her after six years

she never gave a reason why

i didn’t know what to do so i grabbed your hand and pressed my lips against your knuckles

and kissed away the tears on your cheek

they were salty

but your lips were sweet

they tasted like raspberries

you told me the skin on my neck tasted like strawberries

and you left marks like cherries

we got back in your dads pick up and drove till the sun began to slip

then we parked in a field of tall grass and watched it all fade to black

i turned sixteen in january

it used to feel like a dull ache

i wanted to be born into the spring rain or summer grass

this year it felt like a big fuck you

to the frost to the wind and to the chill

i was born at the height of season where everything dies

i pour the basil and mint growing on my window sill out every november

no matter how well they’re doing that year

because between the cold and me they have no hope

i tend to wilt in the winter

the sun turns bitter and my mother’s house has no heat

i lay in the dark and birth twin streams

pinching my skin with numb fingertips

two years in a row

i wrote suicidal letters in the dark hours of my birthday

that was the song i sang to myself as i cried myself into another anniversary

this year was different

someone gave me a planter of soft red roses

i rubbed the petals between my finger and thumb

and i thought to myself

if something so thin delicate

can keep it’s colour

keep its shape

can continue to put down roots into the frost bitten ground

then so can i

six months ago, if someone hugged me i would have cried. i would have burst like a red balloon with its skin stretched too tightly over too much air.

i would have let out a sob like a puncture wound and my whole body would have deflated and curled in on it’s self.

i would have been a useless swath of limp rubber in their arms.

i was so starved for any kind of intimacy that a strangers shoulder bumping into mine on the stairs made my throat close up and my eyes burn

those were the days i thought i was dying

i felt my body on autopilot and knew it didn’t need me

so i sat back and watched everything unfold

and hoped to hell i’d make it out