i.
for christmas i asked you to get me something yellow.
like a sunflower or a new bruise,
or maybe the underbelly of a sparrow.
you bought me seven lemons and told me how
you thought they were perfect for me -
beautiful and bitter.
i left them in the sun until their yellow was all gone.
next year ill just ask you for a card.

ii.
yesterday you told me that i smoke too much
and i told you that i was trying to burn myself down
from the inside.
i want to be flaming when the sun goes down
and i want you to sift through my burntblack ashes
and find whats left of my ribcage.
i want you to catch a songbird to keep inside of it
that will sing much more beautifully than i ever did.
lace my rib-birdcage with ivy and call him smoke.

iii.
i used to sit at the ends of runways
and ask you how the airplanes worked.
how their metalheavy wings carried them
to Singapore and back.
and why the birds never fell flaming into the arctic.
you said maybe they do.
maybe their birdheart engines die out too
and thats why we see shooting stars.
their legs dont act the same on concrete tarmacs.

iv.
i took you to the river so you could watch the waterbugs
standing on the water ripples and i told you how
i wish i could live beneath them on the bank.
watching the places their spindlelegs touched down
but never fell through.
you said maybe i could learn something from them.
and im still trying to swim without drowning.
sometimes i have to swallow some water.