a Promise

ｙyour almond-shaped eyes upturned like crescents,

You squint up at a ghost

bat at your side.

my hair pooled like carpet on bare floors,

I shift behind curtains and curtains of scarlet

a semi opaque veil.

I stare,

and You stare.

your eyes are the only stranger's eyes I have ever met.

broken glass and a baseball lies at my heel.

a Promise, just between Us two.

Kids circle around you like hyenas. They scream at the recluse.

I step back, the walls my shield from the predators.

fiery leaves rustle with the wind,

matte snow swirls the city into an echoing silence,

gaudy flowers and dripping icicles smash onto the pavement, one by one.

a blinding sky beats down on neighbors I do not know and never shall.

one cycle, two cycles, three cycles, six cycles… eight cycles.

and You are there,

your unruly raven hair,

your boyish smile framed by two creases at its side,

your arms marked by my mother's beating hands,

your two year old Converses tattered from running away and back,

your gaze upward,

your silhouette splashed against the rising and falling suns.

and I am there, disquiet

in my chest and my throat and my mouth and my eyes and my limbs.

the cancer spreads through my body, through my Fingertips

and splashes across my room, my home,

my diminutive World.

the sunlight plays across my pallid face.

You smile.

your face is all crescents and creases.

I stare,

and You stare.

the baseball lies at your heel,

a Promise, just between Us two.

I kept it, didn't I?