missing 

in my phone i follow the story of a night-swallowed girl. 
the television is talking to herself. there are
milk cartons in the windows of the car
when we drive from here to the folded sun.
as a kid, we had lawn chairs. plastic. blue. 
a boy in my class told me, "we are water so
if you really wanted to disappear, you could
just lay out & wait to evaporate." i do not know
what prompted his comment. maybe he recognized
my waywardness. the lost creature
in me sees the lost creature in you. i tried becoming
a cloud & it didn't work. i only lasted an hour or so
in the fried egg light. i am surprised i am here
with how much i have tried to go missing. in the videos
the girl leaves little behind. everything seems like
an omen. a plane ticket. a laptop screen. an open window.
her sister collects facts & shares them with 
a hungry internet. a second swallowing. they ask questions.
did she have any friends? did she have dating profiles?
i find myself searching too. i check the mailbox
of the abandoned house up the street. never mind
the government, this is for our lungs. our flesh
in the sweet dark. i drove my car to hillsides. 
took planes to the haunted eyes of statues. i did not want
to be found. does she want to be found? sometimes 
a storm comes & i wonder who it is. if it is maybe
that boy i went to school with. the one who taught me
i could evaporate. when he was in high school
he played guitar. i thought he was beautiful. 
i always wanted to asked if he had tried it too. to dissolve. 
queerness is sometimes only in retrospect. 
boys without boyhood. the goneness of the moon. 
a shakey belief in returns. we are not salmon or are we? 
at a truck stop i ate ice cream with the car radio on. 
barefoot as onion grass. both of us. the missing girl
& me, eat tonight something cold & sweet. 
years later the boy messages me. tells me he's bi. that he
always knew he wanted the pulp of me. i don't remember
if i replied. the girl is still missing. i want her sister to find her. 
i wonder what it will mean if she never does.