FROM, ELIAS

Swinging,
				I leapt,
					   		  bellyflopped,
              burst my aorta. You confessed
your past and present and future
	under a billion flickering reasons to believe
we are insignificant,
			driving the dirt roads
in Del Mar, Past the mansion
	built with walls tall enough
		to keep out snakes
			and dumb teenage drivers
		down into the backroads,
	prayer beads I made of primrose
you left outside your car
by the pathway along the train tracks,
		telling the story of your family’s
			engraved bricks, childhood
		crushes, piecing together
	your walls built tall enough
to keep out your mom, dad, everyone
                                 who didn’t love you

						and off to mine
		
When you told me I’d be fun to fuck,
spreading my lips and legs, grimacing
at my voice and taste, letting me know I fell
					flat,
             scolding me for crying
during Bojack’s finale, when he muttered that
				I really wanted you to like me,
Diane, and she said					I know,
and I should’ve known


       			but it all feels so funny now,
         insignificant, how cold my hands were waiting
outside that concert three days before you left, 
saying goodbye over text, 
                                               kissing me to Ricky,
                                                                                    in Julian,
teeth sinking into that caramel apple,
            (missing the irony), begging you
for one more day 	         	 without knowing why
you never listened                       to my favorite songs,
and why you watched me cry	          and bleed, fallen
onto the playground sand
                                                        and pick myself up.