i saw this before i knelt, then forgot to pray.

A girl stands on a rooftop made of midnight
I am below her like the day after fever
the air is too still to breathe properly
she is the shape of fear, and delicacy
but we do not take pictures of souls that would rather not
hover over the water,
she whispers how afraid she is
of the ground, and not falling,
and the stars shrieking warnings from behind her
the way I bend my voice
when trying to explain
my heartbeat during a thunderstorm
I do not tell her what interpretations
we were not meant understand,
and which runes we hold in our palms
like lanterns we should not be blind to

we are silhouettes in the dark,
spilt ink on velvet,
black curtains we do not
dare to open,
or the separation between raindrops and sea spray
and I know this is what we must look like.
When my attic flooded, I escaped to the basement
I only keep candles when there are not stars,
from here,
the things she asks for sound like glass shards,
and a book no one has ever translated,
though I know these things are only different words
for ‘ladder,’
we are bound to what the gypsies are kind enough to tell us,
what our eardrums are brave enough to let in,
even when the sun starts to blink,
I will be too terrified to stir,
she will leave footprints above my head,
I feel a little less cowardly knowing that
if she had died the stars would have quieted
patience, little one, I should have said,
the fortune-teller tells me what your shadow looks like,
and how soft the water below you is.