I fell in love with your hair first,
the way the dark blue tumbled
over your boney shoulders
and down your back.

My favorite color was orange until I saw it.

You were crying,
I didn’t know what to say,
and there were bruises
patterned over freckles
on your arms.
I never knew what to say to you
when every sentence you spoke sounded
like summer and dying stars,
fireworks tripping off your tongue.

You were scared.
I understood that much.

Sometimes you smelled like cigarettes,
although you were trying to quit.
I tasted them on your lips
one Wednesday morning
when you kissed me in your bedroom.
Blue was waning back to brown,
and you were still beautiful.
Your fingers tangled my own dull hair.
I saw sunsets in your eyes.

You thought I’d leave you
because happiness was so hard.

Once someone told me that
girls like you only existed in books and movies.
I spent a day and a late night
wondering if I’d imagined you,
if you were made of my own loneliness
and sorrow.
It seemed plausible,
but the ghost of your touch
had to be real.

I decided that you were, too.

You told me that you didn’t want to be remembered,
because you didn’t want people to be sad
if they thought of you.
I was always worried,
but that didn’t help,
and the cigarettes never killed you,
and you never dyed your hair back to blue
but the bruises went away.
It was ten past two when you told me you loved me.

You said the stars were holes in the sky
and I held your hand until you fell asleep.