All You Mean To Me

‘You have to care about the joy’, I say

And where do I even get this shit?

You have to care about the joy and it is so easy to forget

Amelia’s face always shines when I ‘get like this’

And it is catharsis to bare myself to her.

We are in my car, tiny and safe, and we should both be at home,

But what is love if not missing curfew

What is friendship if not confused texts from your mother.

I unwind myself slowly, like the beginning of a snowball,

And I imagine I am too heavy to carry now

A sum of my own parts

A snowman of broken edge feelings and sharp wit.

I cried at my 18th birthday party, sobbed and sobbed

Until the world hurt in capital letters

And she let me.

She has never given up on me, on my false starts and circle rhythms

On all of the ways I have talked over her in attempts to get her to stay in the universe I was spinning for us

Dark and full of holes, I call them constellations

And she understands.