Fall Break

We were passing white nights under black skies, and the air froze as lungs expanded, leaving open mouths wide, heads turned to heavens searching for starlight to illuminate the vacant spaces linking our teeth. There are no goodbyes between the half hours around midnight and the layers of 2 a.m. slumber, blue ivory feet sticking to frosted concrete. Winter consumed Lady Fall while night leapt from behind the streetlamp, catching us without headlights on a winding road. Let’s get lost, you said, let’s get lost; let’s find the stars again. But, honestly, I might run away with Orion if you can’t find a more dazzling belt. I’ve always been mesmerized by open sunroofs, night air caught mid-breath, and the prospect of losing our way exactly where we meant to be. I tried to tell you, but when I said goodnight, my voice turned to whispers and the sun dipped behind the trees. I tried to tell you; I found the starlight between my teeth. I told you we don’t have cliffs where I come from, just flat fields and these rolling hills, trying so hard to build up to a wave big enough to earn my suicide. These canyons you brought to me, wrapped up in paper, cuts of land you carved with the groove of your hands, are begging me to be the one who discovers flight. I always knew I’d jump, but I never dreamed it would be off the owl’s eyelashes, from the tips of her talons. She promised to watch over you while I slept backbone to drywall, and I promised to teach you how to fly. I only wish we could both have hollow bones.