ODE Poem: All the Lives We Live, by Allie Talavera

You’re sitting on the hood of your candy painted car as the grease left on your hands touches up your hair. Sometimes when I’m with you, I miss the way you made me feel. The way I wish Christmas would stay magical. It’s nothing to do with a man in a suit—it’s just that I have had a mental illness since I turned 14.

I can’t hear what you’re saying. The fibers in my bones are deteriorating. Uncut tape. Pink all containing boxes. A piece of thread, hanging. I wish I could melt my hands into your flesh and give you the rest of me.

You’re staring at me now. I guess I should mention, I’m not in love with you, but the sky is very beautiful tonight.

When we met, you told me I was pretty. I hope in the next one I will be pretty. At least a little prettier than what I am right now. I think I am falling in love with the world. This world. Right here, on the top of this hill, because I can feel how heavy the oxygen is in my lungs, and I want to die like this.

You ask me, what I’m thinking. I think, if there’s an end too being, I hope to be human.

You say, I’m waiting for something that isn’t coming. I say, Christians wait their whole life to be disappointed.

I look over at your face. It’s a face I used to love. Whatever we are right now, I miss the way we were. Now we’re here touching the heat of the sun, you get in your car, you ask me to join, and I seatbelt my heart in the backseat, and tell you, your smile could freeze time. You ask me to get in the car. I tell you I’m going for a swim.

As I jump off the ledge my skin hits the concrete beneath me, I feel my atoms float back into the sky. I hope they float around like this for a while, like soft cotton sheets on shaved skin. Until I find you again, hold onto me.