Wayfarer

We came of age during a haiku war.
We grew up in tombstone houses, cemetery cities.
We watched screens become the glimmer in our eyes.
Depression in single file. We fell out of line.

You opened your soul to me like a flower,
and I breathed you in.
You showed me all the missing dirt,
from all the places you’d tripped.
You told me what made you too afraid to speak,
so I held my breath with you.
Thoughts that kept us up at night,
you let me feel the violent thunderstorm in your heart,
and it swallowed the sun.

So when your heart stopped,
time moved through me like an hourglass.
The type of cold that turns breath to smoke
tiptoed across my skin.
And in that darkness,
I became as dangerous and beautiful as an ocean.
And I used the stars
to guide me home.