My Cities of Ruin
Table of Contents
I. Fair Warning
II. Stardust
III. Two Lips, Tulips
IV. The Opposite of a Kiss
V. Sorrow
VI. dear
VII. Water
VIII. This is a love letter
IX. daisy rings
X. king of carrot flowers
XI. Son
XII. I am a River
Fair Warning
Fair warning, you told me when we first met. “I’m not good with people,” you had said. You sat, hunched in on yourself, as if trying to find the place where you did not exist.
You had dried paint on your hands and pen-marks on your wrist and you could not make eye contact when we spoke. You instead picked at the paint—blue and purple and gold.
I didn’t know what to say to that.
You just looked lonely.
In the class photo, you blinked.
You were usually late. The class would stop and stare when you did how up, an excuse crumpled up in your hand.
You sat behind me, last seat of the last row. You pulled out a notebook and a pen and tried to ignore the burning looks.
I would pass you a note if we were in any other class. Instead, I doodled in the corner of my notebook.
Nothing important, I think.
I can’t remember.
I used to live with my sister, before father had come back from working abroad.
Emily was tall, thin, and tired. Her eyes were small and swallowed up by under-eye circles. I didn’t know what her job was, but she would come home late each day.
Emily nursed a beer with her dinner each night.
When I asked, she only laughed. She said that I would understand how the world worked someday.
We never did hang out often.
Never after school, never during break.
I would find you in the cafeteria or you would find me. We only had one class together and then half an hour to eat.
Some days, you wouldn’t bring in a lunch. You would still find our table and sit. Sometimes, you would rest your head in your arms and sometimes you would even sleep.
Other days, I would feel bad and offer you half of my lunch.
You never accepted.
When Emily died, father returned just in time for the funeral.
She had always been pretty. She looked as if she were asleep, hands folded neatly over her chest. Emily had wasted away until there was almost nothing left.
Father did not cry.
I didn’t either.
It did not feel real. It could not be my sister stretched out in that coffin, lips so unbearably red—like the blood she had coughed out.
Fair warning, you told me, a smile on your face–sweet, soft, so very sad. Your eyes had been red at the edges, tear stains down your cheeks.
It seems as if cancer takes everyone away.
First mother, then sister, now you.
Stardust
I am not stardust but I want to be
anoint me with the sparkling moonlight
when I have come to the ripe age of twenty-three
would it not be a sight?
a human returning to where he began
the end of one lonely man
I am not stardust but I want to be
for I will marry the stars
and wouldn’t you want to see?
the aftermath of two speeding cars
finally, I would be free
my body, oh, it would burn
and so to stardust I could return.