The Garden

i slept next to your broken wrist and dreamt i was a vine that grew out of a lover's kiss and wrapped around your spine.
will you stay in my life? i wish we were tied together sometimes. entwined by a family line. i wish i was your sister sometimes like tonight.
i'd dry your eyes. you'd cough and then smile and say you'd be alright.
will you be all right?
i'd trace the tattoo on the back of your neck, there's a picture drawn there of the place you left, where you cannot see it, but you can't forget. it's there permanently like a badge of regret. there's a row of ocean shells where there should be a garden. one for each whispered word you could tell me, one for each secret.
so on shell stars in a dirt sky, i wish you'd trade your secrets for mine. i'd plant them, and in time, flowers would bloom and burst through the room where we'd lie, they'd cover our eyes, i'd be that vine, the sun would shine in an endless springtime. but for now, the flowerpots only hold cigarette butts.
there's a headstone there above the nights we talked. there's a different name whispered in your yard, but it sounds the same as the one you want. and now i feel so overwhelmed, i had to sit out by myself on the curb beside your house, with my collar in my mouth, and the feelings that i felt, i had to lay them all out in chalk-writing on the ground, for you to step around. and the rain that ends the drought and would've let our seeds sprout will just wash my words out.