The road signs say “Turn ahead.”

We sing along to songs our parents taught us.
"Turn ahead: Steep cliff."

Her finger is curled around my belt loop.

"Steep cliff: Pay attention."

The road curves away from me

My voices crumples as we clip the guardrail.
Our wheel lift skyward.

Change in the cupholders form constellations glinting in front of your eyes.
We are astronauts coming back to earth.

When the nickel stars settle in the dust, we hang upside down, dangling like marionettes from our seat belts.

We unbuckle them, fall to the ceiling that was never meant to be a floor.

Her collarbone is broken, the same one she fractured at six years old.

The glass is flung around the car in a perfect halo orbit.

And as I’m blinking in and out of consciousness, she speaks to me in a voice that comes from just behind my ears.

She says, “All that has ever mattered is volume, and if you turn up the speakers past the point of sound, to deafening silence, you will hear me again.

"I will whisper your name through the cracks in the canyon rocks and you will know that this is heaven.

It is not a golden escalator or a glowing choir conveying you into the sky.

The hand of God down not reach down and pluck you from your earthly shell, no, the way to heaven is here, in your last moments, these last half second before your soul shivers out of your bones.

There is a tornado in your throat.

You will hear our whispered phone calls, our entwined “I love yous,” and their softness will weigh down on you.

Heaven is an exhausted horse laying down to die.

It is you and your ceiling fans conversing in whispers.

Heaven is floating to earth in this already shattered car.

towns in Illinois would be named Blood so I could no longer pick out yours on a map 

when you're dumb enough for long

enough you're gonna meet someone too smart to love you
and they're gonna love you anyway and it's gonna go so poorly

it must be odd for our mutual friends who like me more

but think you were right

to say I hate you would imply a world in which I kissed more than your stomach 

look we've

established that I'm a jerk so let me

say this 
I'm a flat tire and you are a

pothole full of lug nuts I'm a pile of
bricks and you are holding a sledge
hammer 

which is to say I would not exist without you
you

You will want to kill yourself, but you won't

Because you no longer think of suicide

As a house you will build on day.

Your fourth love, who is your first real love,

When she leaves you, ask your roommate to hide the knives

Because you will carve her name into all of the food in your fridge.

Stop showering, warmth will remind you of her.
Masturbate in public, hope someone catches you, Just so you can feel vulnerable in front of anyone else

Try to burn her clothes, try to fall in love with strangers,

Try to fall asleep without her.

You can't fall asleep without noise but noise will sound like her,

Whispering you into the world of lights and breakfast.

Make the rain sound like nothing,

Make the rain sound nothing like her voice.

Don't be alone.

Marvel at how she, the patient gardener, the bringer of sleep,

She, who draws the bath and lights the candles.

She made you want to live more than anything else

And now she makes you want to leave the world

Because you have seen it.

In her you have seen the color and shape of your perfect life,

And now the children, the house, the arguments about tableclothes

Are all fading like things left in sunlight,

Like any dream left too long in the light.

For months, maybe years, everytime you see her

You will want to kiss her.

When you do you will expect pain to come,

Like the old dog you could never quite put down,

But there will be none.

You will remind yourself, she will remind you,

You will remind each other that this is for the best.

That you are physically incapable of loving one another.

And in those moments you will be lying.

Your heart screaming, "I can! I can! I can!"

But you will stay silent

Because of her, because she asked for this,

Because she filled something in you that's still full

Even though she's gone.