Life as a Kaleidoscope

I told Mama that if I die, she has to bury me next to you

& when she told me she would, it almost sounded like

she knew it was going to happen. I imagine us now,

you & I as little kids with thumbtacks and nails sticking

out of our fingers like twigs. I imagine us as growing 

out of yesterday, running around in circles across the pond,

wetting our feet.

what are we now? I feel the pressure push up against my pupils

and eyelids every time I look down at my feet. tell me, Baby,

do you see me up there with you? I'm not afraid of dying anymore,

not if I'll be next to you. I see a flash of your eyes again. You look 

at me silently, but you're never still. I don't wake up from the pain, 

but it clutters along the railing of my spine. Asher. Do you remember 

how to spell your name?

it all begins with an observation, like when I first saw you laughing

away the evening. I only noticed your eyes. Asher, I've always 

been scared of dying. In the last picture you sent me, your eyes

were full of life. I still look at that picture when I cry. you're 

wearing the burgundy sweater I never realized I took back with

me. if I breathe it in enough times, I can smell your skin again.

I remember everything.

I try mapping out the segment of the night you might have died

in: did the moon stick out bleakly like the white crests on your

fingernails used to? did it collect in masses of dirt around the 

trailing of your fingers? do you know what scares me the most 

about dying, Ash? I don't want to see the pain in my parents' eyes. 

I never got to see your pain in that last photograph, but 

Baby, did you feel it?