Some Divine Thing

My lips, your fingers, your touch, our chests on top of one another beneath the galaxy and you said, “Orion, trace the three brightest stars in the night.” You pinched the flesh of my finger and drew a line in the sky from the east to the west in an upward motion. The moon rose, louder with each breath, casting its light on us. You said the constellations were something beyond our reach, a design we could never know. But I would never be able to understand that type of stuff. I stroked your hair until you started to sob into my shoulder. Alex, your name, a prayer. You were crying because you missed your sister.

Think back to when she left for college. I brought you into my room and held you in the dark. The softness of you, the harshness of your kiss, we promised never to fall in love with each other. We would fall burning like Icarus, I said, but you vowed never to touch the sun. Lips on lips, we embraced in the darkness and you pulled my shirt over my head. You traced a galaxy on my body and pressed your fingers into my skin searching for the stars. You couldn’t find anything in me. Disappointed, you drew back, realizing I was not what you wanted. Your world started and ended with the constellations, you cared more about what they thought of you. 

Before, when you were just the boy next to me in class, you had black hair and brown eyes. He laughed at my jokes, he teased my grin, he helped me study. You introduced me to your world, your constellations, they poked and prodded and spoke down on you, and I realized I never knew you. I realize I don’t remember you. You smelled like pine trees. Did you? To describe you is to fail. Even now, under the white promises in the night sky, your eyes are a blurred painting, washed over a thousand times. At the end, you turned to the girl next to you, the girl who wasn’t me, and said, “Hi, my name’s Alex.” But you’ve always known me. 

The students were the problem. They passed you without sparing a glance. Believe it, to be ignored was worse than to be hated. Your eyes gazed through the crowd, to determine or to believe the best while the blows of their incomprehension pushed you down in waves. Your constellations stood tightly together, fastidious with the way they moved, talked, looked. You looked around, none other than I was watching you. 

Saturn, Jupiter, the Milky Way, an escape, a black hole, falling, falling, falling, never catching your footing. We watched as you crawled onto the highest platform you could find. Brighter, brighter. You stood on the stone platform in the middle of the halls, you took off your jacket. We saw the stars on your wrist, on your legs. We’ve always known you. And you, standing there, some fervent impulse, shining as brightly as you could. You vowed never to touch the sun. Just wielding that sword as if you were something more special than everyone else.