We walked through midnight soaked fields, through wheat grass teasing the backs of our knees to feel the cricket songs reverberate against our skin. I showed him how I navigate the sky--each constellation a former love: the Queen, the Hunter. He apologized for the burning spheres, for my loss of language. His lungs, fingers, eyelashes will become dotted blue traces, pin-point pricks on my character--my navigation. Kings will keep my guard, and I will sleep soundly beneath his face.

She lifted the blankets, gesturing for me to crawl in. I curled against her warmth, pressed my lips to her shoulder, wondered if I was born of restlessness.

She explained different levels of seraphim; I listened, feigned belief in effort to please belong inside of her sheltered walls. She said "cherubim" and I remembered when she didn't have breasts and I felt closer to her heart. She asked about my day and it was the only way she was a part of it.

I track my days with tiny pink pills. The weeks are left as ribbons tangling between blue lines--a tired litany, an escape through my refusal to acknowledge his wars in/away from home. His face is that of the mother he hates; his voice molded by her inadequacies and haste.

Ich bin, aber ich kann nicht.

I watched him sleep, wondering which parts came from long-forgotten gods; wondering if anything I felt for him would translate so well into black and white. I could only form the words that would close his chest.

The wires snapped from their poles--
wind-whipped and furious.

I stopped sleeping to make sure the days come and go as planned:

31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30.

275.