I would like us to be laughing

I used to watch them sway in
the dark like flags.
thighs wrapped around the edges of
light, abyss I couldn't comprehend.

I smoked my first cigarette with
a kind of restlessness.
I gave it everything, then, thin hands,
muffled crying, waking up each
morning with terror on my arms.
Newports, seven bucks a pack,
starfish limbs and blue soliloquy.
I won't grow back.

nettled silver. the unshakable day.
I would like to watch you laughing.
I would like to watch you holding
stacks of books in the rain.
and I want to call you crying
at four in the morning.
and I want to call you holding books
in the rain at four in the morning.
and have you come meet me.
and have it be gold. and have
the park not be so big.

and have a cheap motel and a
drink without consequences.
and I don't want to remember
your name but I don't want it to
matter, either. and I don't want
what we did in the snow in the park
at night to make me a slut.
I was so damn young.
wasn't this what I always
wanted? lipstick stains and roach
clips? sneaking out to meet paper boys?
I would try to love them. would hold
them like thick fog.
would let them be mistakes staining
my fingers and my arms. would let them
be mistakes so I wouldn't have to feel the
impact of regret. each star each boy
would hold their own and I would not burn
in the hearth of silver rain.