stained grass

I used to wonder about the grass and how it clung to your clothes, marking them green with envy. It left a quiet trace of something so alive on the shell of someone who had forgotten how to be a part of the living. The grass, like clay, would mold around your body, only the imprint of a boy remaining. It would keep that way for days and I often question whether that was Mother Nature's way of giving you a place  to call home; a place you could slip into and hide away.

I asked you if I could hold your hand while you waged wars with the hole in your heart, the deep pocket that would never be filled. You held on as long as you could, keeping me up on nights I really should have been sleeping, and I clung to every piece of you my fingers could carry. I knew I should let you fold yourself into the pocket of your heart, but I always thought I could find a place in mine. I had enough room, but you just wouldn't fit comfortably, like the chair we tried fitting in the trunk of the car. You could squeeze and shift to situate yourself in the left-hand corner, but it wasn't where you wanted to be.

When I heard from a friend of a friend of mine that you found a new someone who could take your breath away and make you dance under twilight stars, I wasn't surprised. There are a million people who can make you feel on top of the world, but only a select few who can make you feel like you're not alone up there.

Sometimes I think about the grass and the smell of your skin, I listen to the rain and  have decided that if heartbreak could make an audible sound, it would be the rain on a summer day. Something delicate, yet needed, if only to make the grass grow green.