glow sticks & other types of broken halos.

how long has it been since
you broke a halo?
oh-- you firework child
you were the girl we all 
wanted to love but never
had the courage to-- 
the knotted hair & 
the grass stain dress--
blush blue-- dust 
of a cereal bowl-- 
oh firefly do we terrify?
she was the
feeling of dirt-feet gracing 
carpet in the living room--
the bunk bed queen--
i have yet to be as brave 
as you-- 
i didn't mean to stop climbing 
trees--
do you remember all the
finger bones
we snapped on
the way up?
gripped
until the branches 
glowed iridescent--
we glowed to challenge the moon--
i still believe you 
when you said
everything is possible 
if you can still hold a pencil--
you were the girl-body love
who walks waist-deep in 
the creek & never worries 
about drowning--
i feel her in my freckles--
broke halo after halo
to see her room ignite 
handcuffed in blue--
we grew frog eggs in our palms--
untangled the water snakes from
each other--
the prevention of another ouroboros--
but that is what we always become--
i eat the image of my former
self in the twist of a fork
in a nest of spaghetti--
she wrote only on the first page
of leather notebooks--
printed her novellas with
her lips puckered
up against a bubble wand--
when i was 7 i lived
on the bookends of a summer
always coming or going
to blushed pancake cheeks--
she broke pencils like glow 
sticks-- broke tree
branches like goodbyes--
folded old photographs like
dinner napkins--
i turn the light off in the
bathroom before i go to bed.
watch myself snap the halo i've been
saving-- crown myself 
in the mirror-- bite
the tail of the snake--
when they cut glass for 
my stained glass windows
they'll remember here my
halo was blue--
glow stick blush &
the collective memory 
of all the snakes
who've bitten a firework child
only to find their mouths
blue fire--
green flame.