I hold up pieces of myself to the sunlight
to see if the colours reflected on the wall
are different than yours.

I use tweezers and a microscope
to pick apart myself sometimes
but I am careful where I draw the incision line
because I am afraid that when I
open up my heart I'll find tumours and maggots.
And I am afraid that when I do
this you'll be looking over my shoulder like you do
when I read a book and
then you'll see what's really inside me.

I can't help but wish for one last thing
to tell you so that when I say goodbye
it is goodbye and you won't remember more of
me than that last thing.
If I told you one last thing, it would stick with
you like Elmer's glue on a five year old's hand
and with some convoluted joy you'd peel it off
piece by piece, until your hands were clean.

The past is pretty when seen through photos and greeting cards.
You and me, we're in a permanent Polaroid where
we're sitting on concrete steps in February, and we're waiting
for something but we forgot what it was .
We talk to each other looking into city traffic,
we don't touch each other because we're afraid
that we're made of Christmas ornament glass and
we'll shatter together.
And our breath grows cold, because even when
we're beside each other on concrete steps we're still alone.
I want to look at you and tell you one last thing,
but I can't because everyone knows that looks from
girls with snakes in their hair can
turn aspiring heroes into statues.

The future is something I can't mark up with sticky notes,
I can't write my own agenda or a script to make lines
like I usually do with love and other curricular courses.
I like to have my entrances and exits memorised,
The world's a stage and you and I are actors,
but what can I do if I don't know when the spot light dims
and the script is over and the audience is still in the theater,
and I run out of things I store in my head to say to you.

I'm used to you being there to catch me when I trip over
my shoelaces and careen for the cliffs that border
the world that I have created for myself.
What if you're not there to break my fall.
and I land in some stranger's sweaty hands.
Or worse, I keep falling, and no one wants to reach
out and stop me but the thorn bushes
at the bottom of the hill.

What if we lose each other in a carnivorous
crowd that and pushes us apart.
And I shout for you, and you look for me,
but they are singing some song which
we both don't know the words to
and we're both lost and alone
amongst thousands of others.

What if I never tell you one last thing,
even if we grow old together as
best friends who share a house, or an
apartment if you'd prefer to stay in the city?

If I could tell you it now, that one last thing,
I might say that you're the only person who
understands me, because you're the only
person around these parts who knows how
to read above the grade two reading level.
If I could tell you one last thing I might write
a thank you card using the cut up letters
of old headlines just so you would know it was from me.

But I can't because there is no goodbye yet.
We'll keep on tearing away keepsakes of each other
in case it is our one last thing.