i shared ash with a flower

we were both smoking gals, fire in our hearts
hot to the touch,
but warmth was always underneath

i bring a flame to you in my imagination
and see the light in the bangs of your hair
your face glows for just a minute
and a million things i want to say lose its way in my throat

I wish I could do many things differently

I don’t see flowers the same

I think of you
in the color white,
you wore it the time we laughed at the aquarium 
seventeen years old — we thought it was the beginning
you wore it
the last time i ever saw you
me—i wore black

I think of you when i’m alone, driving my car.
how it used to be me in your passenger seat,
and we’d pass cigarettes back and forth,
careful not to let the wind extinguish that burning cherry
it’s just me and myself now, driving somewhere
a feeling in my chest like withdrawal

i think of you when a cloud passes by
no other significance
just a fact

i’d say:
“what’s your favorite color now? when you drove last, where did you go?
do you remember when you said you wanted us to be like Thelma and Louise?”
and so many other important and insignificant things

Thelma and Louise—
they drove off a cliff together, hand in hand

you grew from the earth
and there you went again

are these tears enough to grow you once more? 
there’s so much I wish I can say
“remember when we used to smoke together?
how we wiped ashes off our denim?
and were so close our foreheads touched when we lit each other’s cigarettes?
laughing at how stupid we were,
seventeen year old addicts to each other?”
i knew nothing of the world

show me your beautiful face
show me in the smoke 
the clouds
this water-filled vase