you were always bleeding out moon beams over the kitchen sink or digging up soil in the backyard because you thought it would make you something holy. you liked it best when i called you a tattered king, you were the only one i knew that could wear their mess so bravely. you taught me scars could be a second skin as long as you didn’t pick at them. when the demons try to communicate, you don’t have to respond. they’re just speaking out of turn. when the angels try to communicate, don’t ever respond. they’re just filling up your wishing well with water and leaving you to drown at the bottom. you told me my poetry sounds a lot like slamming doors and it tastes like after a nosebleed when you can’t wash away the metallic aftertaste. you told me my bruises were just sunflowers trying to bloom from under the skin but if i touch them too much i’d stunt their growth. i liked when you came around because it all went silent and you liked it because it made your brain work again. so we sat on the floor and i rehashed conversations with fallen angels that painted their hands like ladybugs and you told me about conversations with dying stars that were always pumping you full of other galaxies so you’d survive on other planets because heaven knows you were too good for this place. you promised you’d take me with you when the time came and we’d find a place where it’s spring all the time so my hands would never freeze and you’d never have to worry about lakes drying up again.