When your favorite color was orange
mine was black because Halloween was already my favorite.
But the next day, you changed your favorite to yellow.
Even though it looked like urine,
I smiled and pretended I liked it too.

--

You don’t remember the time we ate the mud in our mud pies
because we didn’t understand that they weren’t real food.
I do.
Mine tasted like mud, but yours tasted like cheesecake
You never remembered things like that.

--

One time, I whispered my secrets into the ear of the phone
and it gave me your laugh.
You thought I was joking, but I wasn’t.

--

That year, we ran down the street without shoes on
and your eyes lost their sparkle; the glitter and glam was gone
But all I saw was the gravel on my feet.

--

You started getting sadder around the time
I started getting really cold
And your eyes turned blue so I wouldn’t be lonely
Even though you hated all the blue M&M’s.

--

When you grew into a person you saw me
Not what I wanted you to see, but you saw everything
Me: whole, raw, naked, and bare.
I wish you wouldn’t remember that.

--

But you wrote me a letter about it afterward
and I was surprised to see the good qualities overwhelm it
even though you pointed out my every flaw.

--

You were my perfect person, but there is a problem with that.
Perfect people always fall from perfect to just person;
For you, you fell from the bridge and into the water
when you came back from your grandmother’s house.
The fall killed you before the lack of swimming lessons had a chance.
They feel cheated, I’m sure.

--

Do you remember the time we picked snails off the side of your grandmother’s house?
Now it reminds me of the California sun,
my favorite sun because it looked orange.
Not yellow like the fever, or your favorite color;
Orange like the flowers I left on your tombstone
because all the yellow ones were dead