When it ends, I’m sitting on the mattress with Charlie, thinking about the way we used to be.
We grew up in the suburbs of somewhere, Nebraska
in a neighborhood where nothing ever happened
but I think we were happy anyway.

On his tenth birthday I told him I loved him
he held my hand with sticky fingers and didn’t let go
there were grass stains on his knees and when he kissed me it tasted like frosting
I wonder if he remembers all that.

Things started to change when Charlie’s older brother joined the army.
We ran away one night to look at the stars together
when we came back they had buried his brother in the garden
and the whole house smelled like lilies.

We were both sixteen when they started building bomb shelters in the backyard
but Charlie was gone and he didn’t send postcards anymore.

I didn’t see him again until I was holding someone else’s hand
he’d cut his hair and was wearing a uniform, I can’t remember for which side.
It doesn’t matter now.
We passed on the street, and though I know we recognized each other,
neither of us stopped to say hello after all this time.

I turned eighteen and I sent him a postcard with a picture of an ocean he’d probably seen before
but he replied anyway to say he was sorry and that he was coming home.
Something had broken inside of him.
The radio stations told me things were ending for good and I believed them
because Charlie and I sat on the front porch and watched explosions in the sky.

There’s screaming from outside now, this must be the way
he puts his hands over my ears and I try to remember the last time we were this close
I wonder if the constellations we made up as kids will still hang in the sky when we’re gone
little pinpricks in the dark
shining for no one.