Both freezing,

We warmed our hands

On the slowly cooling glass

We had shaped together -

Ragged and crooked, but our own.

You intertwined our fingers:

“When did you first realize you were empty?”

For a split second I breathed clean air

Wanted to ask:

“When did we first meet?”

I sipped the syrup from your words

Wasted countless hours recollecting them

Drizzling that sickly sweet

All over the crumbling bits of ash

And sand that was my heart.

You took fire to it

Sharpened it, hardened it.

I thanked you for it –

All the way to the end

I felt privileged.

My glass heart was not more difficult to shatter.

I fell in love with the lights in your eyes.

It took me years to realize that I was seeing my own reflection.