remember them.

You will never be lovelier
        Than when you hobbled home
        (from the desert land of bombshells and blood)
                        Through filtered twilight and etched leaves
                        That smelled like sunshine,
                                Carrying nothing but a broken
                                         Heart.

I will run into your arms and
        squeeze you till they ache
                bury my face in your travel-weary shirt
                        and breathe in the beauty of your sweaty odor.

As the burning god we live by sets,
        we will walk into the night
                and I will feel as if I've finally come awake.
                        Alive

                                        again.

We will aimlessly wander to the pond
            - the one you fell in when you were young -
            and let my weary feet and your weary heart rest on the shore.
                        The ache in my feet will pass, resting in the placid waters;
                        and my elated heart will soar
                                    (a dream)
                                    But you?

Your battered heart will not fly.
            We'll lie with our backs in the tall grass,
            our feet dangling as evanescent fish dance in billows around them.
                        The moonlight will flutter down and gently push
                        against the immovable shadows within us
                                    - to illuminate the itty bitty places of our souls
                                    That squirm under scrutiny (the places we like to leave
                                                Alone).
                                    And the moonlight will bathe your face
                                    as the salt and water trickle down

I will listen as you tell me how you promised
            time and time again you'd be there, always always always.
            but when it happened you were ending lives;
                        not like in the video games the two of you used to play together
                        but so much worse, with Death and Time and God
                                    And how a requiem of lost souls will haunt you
                                                (now. forever.)

I will listen as you'll tell me how you'd
            clutch your rifle to your chest for dear life
            like how you had held his hand during
                   chemotherapy
                        and how you'd used old books and thick encyclopedias
                        to shield you from the ceaseless gunfire
                                    (tat tat tat tat tat tat tat)
                                    and how they'd reminded you of the Wiki races* back home
                                                with him - you would always start at cancer and end


                                                                                    far far away.


And I will listen as your eyes look like Christmas,
            bloodshot and emerald all in one
                        (the grass is getting watered, now)
                                    as you tell of how you were a promise too late
                                                and a broken promise meant a broken heart,

for when the electrocardiographic device flatlined,
            (here the stars fall out of the sky, the moon explodes like fireflies)
                        you were unwiring a bomb and praying to his name,
                                    Jason. Jason. Jason.