RESPECT RESPECT

Steel Snowflakes

A poem

Don’t suppose it matters all that much now. That I wondered, the last time I saw you With silver steel snowflakes in your hair If you’d make it.

Maybe you wondered the same for me— and fucked if I know, and thrice-damned if I don’t still wake up and wonder even now even when molten sunlight jars me from the dreams I lose myself in.

I wonder. If the reason I didn’t ask wasn’t that I respected you enough to give you space, to give you time, to have faith that you’d finally—take the needle from the vein

I wonder if I didn’t respect you enough to ask.

We both knew we needed help, didn’t we? Snowflakes drifting in the dusky haze, not admitting to each other or ourselves we’re too close to the fire

[To a friend:

I miss you, and I’m sorry. For all the times I couldn’t bring myself to ask— “Do you need help?” For not respecting you enough to ask. But, I keep you with me. For all that’s worth.—L.]