Friends

You said once, the blankets were the stairs,
and I felt like a seductive poem
confined within the fences of the playground with the red-rubber floors.
Bruises don’t exist in the playground, you said, children do.
I let you push my swing to and from the stars.
I pretended to know the constellations, I took astronomy,
but all I really remembered was Tyco Brahe had a gold nose.
I pretended Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
It was a quarter moon, not quite yet done, not old enough to play with us.
I thought to kick you under its watchful eye, so we could fall
to the floor like lovers in a romantic melodrama.
We kissed and breathed and blamed confusion.
We mixed and melted and I cried because
when He threatens you with the rats in room 101
you will ask them to do it to me, not Julia, or yourself.
Tomorrow you will find yourself singing
everything hurt and Nothing was beautiful.