From the other end of the phone line my mother says, "Sean, Poppy flowers are beautiful in the right light."
I say, "You're right and landmines look like toys to children til their limbs explode,
and their families find their bodies in ditches on the side of the road."
My mother is crying herself to sleep tonight.
Maybe this light is right for you, but from here I can't see the stars.
In the morning the sunbeams will look like jail bars.
Again, my reflection in the mirror is fading.
I stare at the emptiness In it's place.
Please... come back.
Please. I'll breathe I love you into your bloodstream until the needles can't compare.
I'll tether my veins into thread and stitch them through your torn seams.
I'll scream light into your bruises still living beneath your track marks.
You can stand on the cliff of my heart and shout nothing but ugly through me.
I promise all I will echo back is, "Beauty, beauty you have always been beauty."
Sometimes it's the metal in the windchimes that remind us how soft the breeze is.
So even while you grow like a switchblade.
Pupils dialating the apocalypse.
More junk in your veins than blood.
More rage on your lips than love.
I'll still believe in you, I knew you blew this world a kiss, and no one blew it back.
I wish I had a roadmap back to that time before you mainlined midnight, in search of an escape.
I wish I'd had your back that night.
I wish I'd told you life is going to hold you at gunpoint but time usually comes with a white flag.
Cause right now, there's a body bag around the moon.
And everytime you cry, the constellations look like chalk outlines of crucified angels in the sky.
I'm not sure I'm strong enough for this,
My skin is not impervious.
I can see the veins in my wrist too clearly,
Can feel the knife in the drawer.
Can still see the emptiness in the mirror.
We are more alike than you know.
We both carry ourselves like ambulances with someone dead inside, still thinking we'll get there in time.
I didn't get there in time.
You will never have a greater opportunity to learn to love your enemy than when your enemy is your own red blood.
Across the map, my mother is finally asleep; and dreaming of times more innocent than these.
And maybe you'll never be that new again.
Maybe there will always be days when the sunbeams look like jail bars.
Maybe it will seem you have more scars than lifelines.
Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much.
I know you think this world is too dark to even dream in color but I've seen flowers bloom at midnight.
I've seen grey skies and they were real close to looking like the sunrise.
Sometimes It takes the most wounded wings, the most broken things to notice how strong the breeze is.
How turbulent the flight.
I'm still looking at an empty mirror.
But I'm still believing.
I'm still telling myself the moon is a kite, attached to a string that will one day lead me back.
