the outline of where you were sitting

it’s just a building now, nothing else 

a skeleton of some unearthed creature 

there is something to be destroyed, but maybe it isn’t you and you’re not going to hell, not yet 

sometimes it really is that simple; sometimes there is no secret answer only the wind splintering your fingertips, the same night sky over and over it’s terrifying to think there might be nothing out there 

but isn’t it better to be afraid on our own terms? 

i loved you in a way i didn’t have words for 

not when i was fifteen and burying myself 

you were the northern lights, caustic and fleeting 

something to believe in that wasn’t a threat 

i dream of us sitting in the church yard again 

one more evening knelt down in the grass 

until we glow fluorescent 

UFOs over a quiet street, incomprehensible 

like whales calling out in the dark 

i dream of a giant’s ribcage around us 

and it was only ever a building