#1
we were just a couple of teenage
ghosts doing i-dosers
in the moonlight;
you thought i was cool
because i was the one who
discovered them.
i watched your freckles
turn into lite brite dots
i watched your freckles
turn into constellations
i watched your freckles
turn into fireworks
that wanted to dance
off of your face.
i saw the clock come off the
wall; you didn’t notice.
you told me your hands
were on fire.
i told you mine were
as cold as the last cup of
water i drank while i was
alive. as cold as the time
we went skinny dipping
in the middle of a
snowstorm.
it’s hard to believe that
white noise could give
us such a rush;
i was told it was just
the placebo effect and
i wondered if they would
have worked the same
when we were alive.
i don’t think they would have.
back then,
we didn’t know death.
#2
reminisce about the times
we escaped our houses at
night while our parents were
asleep; i wore slippers so i
wouldn’t wake my parents.
now we don’t need to
sneak out; nobody is up
waiting for us. we are
dead.
now we leave the houses we
haunt in the middle of the
night; go visit our respective
families’ houses and
watch them live their lives
without us. we dance in
cemeteries full of people
like us,
people who were
unable to cheat death.
#3
do you ever think about
who we would be
if we hadn’t gotten into
the car that ended our
too-short lives?
would you have been a doctor
would you have gone to Harvard
like you dreamed of
ever since you were a child
would i have gone to art school
would i have become a painter
would i have become a writer
would i have become famous
like i had dreamed of
ever since i was a child
would we have accomplished
the greatness we had hoped for
and does it really matter
now that we’re dead?
i think about it all the time.