Sometimes I ponder what would have become of that scarf, that I flipped over your neck, lassoed you in with to rest on your body against the car, after it passed from my shoulders to yours and back and forth, silky and white before it was bloodied; but if it hadn't been, I wonder. Would we have kept it for us and made it a relic? Would it whisper against the skin of my neck as you pulled it off me in the naked midst of nuzzling and biting and so much pushing and pulling with joyous sneers; would you wear it to school mismatched under your jacket and would I reclaim it in the evening with a playful grasp so that it wouldn't be my hands pulling you in but your lips would meet mine just the same. Would people start saying, "What's with that scarf?" Lindsey might know what it really meant and Michael would cock a brow over it a couple times but eventually smile at our tug-of-war. My wind would weave into woozy senseless metaphors about your skin against mine as we fell helpless into tangled sleep, always having to forage for the damn thing in the morning; it could be caught around an elbow, or thrown across the room. We would forget where I bought it long after the label wore off but still remember the eyes of each other in the dim light with all those kids staring and gaping, back when you were younger than you knew.
Because this is what you think about in a hospital when somebody might die; or days after, or months more. You try to pull happiness into this wall around you but still there's the smell of blood that makes it hard to tell yourself that this certain kind of terrified doesn't mean that it's not worth living at all. You realize that even through your wisdom and indifference, things are not even close to as permanent as they should be. One song, three minutes long; it's worth three days of waiting to know if you'll make it out of this mess. I know this, but I don't feel it, and I'm waiting for you to wake up to tell me why I should stay. Even though I wait for this, outside your door where the walls are frighteningly pale, I'm kidding myself because I know I'd run as soon as you opened your eyes.
This long white thing, like nothing I've worn before. I can no longer remember what it looked like without the stains, and I don't know any reason why I should. I wear it hidden, gagged under my clothes, because the reasons I have to tell you that something of me was born and then died that night are lost from me now.
I can only hope your hands will find it when I don't have the arms to push you away.