so basically, i listened to fourth of july by sufjan stevens. oops.

You have been sitting there for a long time. I saw you walk in the door, and once you looked at me lying here you pulled up the hard little chair from the corner, right up to my side, and you haven't moved since.

Are you comfortable there? The couch might be nicer, especially if you're waiting. Are you? Are you waiting?

"Hello," I say. "Who are you?" But I know you already. You're the boy with the firefly eyes.

"Hello," you say. "My name is Yato."

I love your name. I feel…proprietary, towards it. It is mine. Yato is mine.

"I'll carry you somewhere, if you like," you say. The bed is a good place, but I know there are better places out there.

You lift me into your arms, and I am small next to you; the dove bones shift under my skin.

"You're a nice young man," I say, patting your cheek.

Was it a dream I had, that we knew each other before this bedroom? Dreams and reality flirt with each other's borders these days.

I know there is a long black shape lurking behind me. That is always the same—dream or not.

"Where should we go?" you ask.

"The best place to go is up," I say. Isn't that true? The dove bones that shift and slip against each other in my skeleton tell me they would like to go up. And I am a slave to my bones.

We go up to the roof of the hospital. You hold me close to you, away from the sobbing wind.

Who do you miss?

You look down at me. A shard of the sky has fallen off and landed in your eyes. Does it hurt? Is that why you're crying?

"Do you remember?" you ask. "Do you remember how we've done this every day?"

It's all right, little boy god.

"You're a nice young man," I say.

Your skin shudders under my fingertips. Your angles are my angles: a couple of paper cranes, hung against the sunset. Do you have someone else to take care of?

"Can I follow you?"

You ask this with dry lips and sore eyes. I ache for your emptiness. My hand is on your cheek again. You have ageless skin. I love touching it.

"You'll come too, someday." Except I know you can't. You are a god of the unfinished, a priest to the needy, a mender of broken things. As long as there are people to fix, you'll be here to fix them.

Your ageless skin smells like a garden in the heaviness of the rain. It smells like the bitter, too-early cherries after a warm winter. It smells like the childhood I must have had.

You belong to the youth I must have had. My moon in the sky. I'll miss you so much in the dark.

"Yato."

"Yes."

But as long as I'm still breaking, I need you here.

"How long have you known me?"

Your chin trembles. A peculiar quiver finds its way over your lips. And then you kiss my cheek. I love you, I love you, I love you, and I've remembered your firefly eyes.

"Not long enough."