carved names in swollen bark
beat to the rhythm of our hearts
twining with giggles reverberating from the
backyard

we performed our
disappearing acts in
empty boxes, the cardboard
folded our eyes and
creased the corners, they transformed
the edges into crinkled tear ducts
we crashed into new-car scents floating into
naïve nostrils, watched the wheels swerve so all of the
crumbled letters in the glove box
trickled out,
remember the uneven pieces of
periwinkle tape and the
purple walls,
we were
piled together in a twin bed because
at night, there was a soothing voice to
read away the moths
while in the morning, diagnoses took the chance and
squirmed up
goose-bump arms

we pushed icons face-down on the floor to make room for
original paintings and summer-stained canvases
remember the
dusty prayer books we wedged behind
Alice in Wonderland and
Gulliver’s Travels
i never flipped through the channels
like other girls my age, instead i loved
to stare at the sunset-lakes
twinkling through your hair,
weaving themselves between
abandoned car seats and off-white walls encasing
my 8:00am appointments
we carved our names into
plump trees
and covered them in
our guiltless
footprints

one time i caught those
butterfly-heartbeats that like to hide behind
crimson panic
i folded them into paper balls and threw them against
a black room
i asked you to play the game with me, so we played
dodgeball and unfolded the projectiles into paper airplanes
(god knows that they were the only things that
ever truly flew)
we piloted past reasons why
the candle smoke is swarming
why the washing machine is beeping
why the oven is coiling and
why i’m clutching to fingers that always
slip through

i testify
in favor of
carved names in swollen bark and
in swollen legs;
stay here, my dear, and help me fold up
the carcasses