Stairway(s)

Your car sat outside my building for a moment or two
Making a call, lighting a cigarette
I need to believe that you were catching your breath

Put my head against the cracked wall,
bracing my palms on the cool, cascading plaster
Not able to go up, not yet with the stairs so dark

You're you, I'm me
We are who we are
and again I am facing a stairway

"I love you" I had said
"For every step in your building, I love you
For every right foot and left foot, I love you
I love you, a thousand times, in a million places
In ten years of memory, I love you"

My building, this time, not yours
Going up and not down
Leaving your car a woman instead of a girl

Things have changed, but not this tornado of starlight
Every step up these stairs is a step away,
but closer to something else
Closer to who I'm meant to be


Irony, yes, that I finally see me as you always have
Too late


Words, so furious in my lips and hands,
are slow to come tonight
Not enough letters in the alphabet to articulate
or stars in the sky to map
Not enough breath in these lungs to explain
    what we are

One embrace and I could crawl beneath your skin once more,
as if that would be enough

This blue moon love echoes in my chest,
your name and eyes tattooed into my bones
I would not unwrite our story if the heavens threatened
to leap from the sky in protest

So, instead I'll leave this here-

Beneath eyelashes that clumped with tears and confusion,
below the broken hearted bitterness that assaulted my soul,
outside of what shattered dreams poisoned my ear
I knew you loved me
    even when hesitation stole your tongue
    even when months kept silent
    even when we finally moved on
I knew it unquestioningly, a heartbeat

Are you still in your car, the radio crackling?
I feel as if I am still at the bottom of the stairs,
a fresh goodbye on my lips

The firmament in all its possibilities is ahead
and no matter how hard I fight,
the story of you and I will forever be a constellation in my sky

Overhead,
a soft echo of light to illuminate the steps