her bedroom window
looks onto my bedroom window
and when we were little we would toss notes
across the few feet of air between us
and tell secrets in cans on strings
and her big brother called across the gap in the summer, too,
and i was certain i would marry him
and we would be sisters-in-law and inseparable.
now the window is dark.
the boy is angry and the girl keeps her shades pulled
and she wears long sleeves in the summer
to hide the red tally of heartbreaks carved into her skin.
he flips the i-don't-give-a-fuck
and she cries behind her bangs
and their parents hardly speak
and the
windows
are
dark.
i breathe on the glass and
fog paints our childhood memories
and i scramble to save them in a jar
or shelves of old scrapbooks and watercolour messes
but this is a fire
and everything is charred now.
