a glass bottle shatters across the snow
two teenage girls laugh like the world is ending

an alley and a kiss
a new red sweater

escaping the city on the bus
to sit on your porch in the sunshine

you couldn’t wash the poison off your hands
I was breathing too fast

chanting unfamiliar words
incense smoke filing the air

comic book stands
and the empire state building
a picture-perfect moment

driving away as far as I dared
writing something about how pressure turned coal into diamonds
even back then, I wrote to keep myself from being crushed

fragments of tiny moments returning again and again

        memories