Lives

By Lana Rafaela Cindric

Lives stick to me like the cherry lip gloss I find in
my grandmother's attic, right by the christening dress,
by the first braid I had cut off like shedding my skin.

I was so many things in so little time.

I was fury,
sweltering hot blistering rage summer kind of feral,
sweat pooling in your collarbone and skin sticky with want.
There was no ink-stained grace in how I forged my own gold
out of blood.
No one wanted to keep kissing the girl who only spoke of death, anyway.

(They pull you in and ruin you with their crazy, they do.)

I was the green line dripping down your family tree.
It's all in the genes, your mother's eyes, your father's nose,
how you put your fingers to the piano and Earth
shifts beneath my feet.
But pain, too, huh, did you notice that?

When you burn someone's house down you aren't just
destroying the walls.
You are destroying a history, too.
So put down the matches. Walk away.
This is not yours to ruin.

I was crazy, dirty, absofuckinglutely insane love.
The kind you only get when you've got a desperate soul and don't know
what to do with it anymore.
You've got to pour your heart into something, right?
But no one told you when to stop pouring.
When you bleed out, they step over your body
on the sidewalk.
Wildflowers will grow from your bones.

I was ephemeral, a fleeting moment in time,
now you see it now you don't, blink and you'll miss it.
Keep good eyes on the road and don't look back, find me
when you hear the music that wasn't supposed to be there. More feels like champagne bubbles
in your chest.
Your heart is a riot and you've got grease-stained fingertips
but your hands always looked good to me.

I was a peach orchard once, I'm sure.
I made something grow, light attracts light and man, oh man,
did the moths love me.

I was the summer you stole your first kiss, I was
a swelling symphony. I made something look beautiful and my trees
trapped sunlight.

I was a peach orchard once, I'm sure.
You don't forget that kind of joy.

It always makes the shadows a little less terrifying.