I told the stars to shut up.
They weren’t witnesses. They were worse.
They kept spelling your name,
blinking slow, like pity,
glinting gallant-
like that ever saved anyone.

I walked past the summer we called ours
like I wasn’t still stalking it.
Like I didn’t prowl on purpose,
like I didn’t rehearse your alibi,
like I didn’t pray
(for prey.)

I was fine with the trees, the oil stains,
the way the sun pretended nothing happened.
I could go days without hearing an ice cream truck,
or seeing a sun-burnt stranger
and thinking: maybe the universe
rerouted you into someone
I could almost survive.

You once said I was dangerous.
And by once I mean
I wrote it down
and heard it forever.
It’s in my lymph nodes,
in the poems you pretend not to read.
It’s in the version of me
you kept almost loving
but never quite chose.

You called us perilous.
Or maybe I did.
It’s hard to tell, since
I’ve been writing you
with your mouth shut
for months.

I keep checking the margins
for your voice.
All I got were
the noises people make
when they’re trying not to drown,
but pretending to wave.

Why is your name still more siren
than sentence?
Still more blood than bruise?
I made your absence
a body I slept beside,
because I kept waking up
guilty.

I never served,
but I wrote the ending.
Put my hand on a Bible,
bit my tongue so hard
the truth still tastes like you.
Wore borrowed pearls,
and swore to God
I never loved you more
than the day you didn’t show up.

I would’ve done time for you.
I would’ve confessed to a crime
that didn’t exist
just to hold your hand once
on the courthouse steps.

You said I was dangerous.
You were right.
But not in the way you thought.
I told the whole truth-
just not out loud.

You didn’t get convicted.
But I still can’t go back
to that summer
without thinking the tan lines
were warning signs,
without getting subpoenaed
by the sky.

Some nights,
your name still tries to get in
like a burglar.
I play dead,
tell the stars to shut up.
But they unlock the window anyway.
They spell you out in light
like they want me to remember
how it felt
to be the crime scene.

Everybody keeps saying how they’d dance in the rain —
sway their bodies, feel the drops,
let the water wash away their pain.

But I say —
why romanticize what you barely understand?
You sing to storms like they’re songs of healing,
but don’t you know?

Rain is sorrow.
Rain is memory leaking through the cracks.
It’s the sky mourning something it lost,
not some magic meant to set you free.

So when someone smiles
and whispers how much they want to dance in the rain,
I look away and answer softly:

Everything but the rain.
                                                  -Asher Graves

Take the time—don’t just spend it— to watch your grind,
These dreams are brewed, steeped behind these caffeine eyes.
Still, as the sunrise scripts its golden lines, my gaze still delays
Having to put on a daily mask; trapped in yesterday’s disguise.
All of these borrowed hours lace my breath, thinned and worn,
All these seconds spent on second-guessing myself; I’m torn—
Barely paying attention to obvious life lessons due in reflection;
Skipping those lessons, now I pay with life's collection.

As for facing my many regrets, it proves facing the glass—
But not all mirrors can clearly cut clean through the past.
Truths are warped, wrapped for the present, for who peer—
Peering in, fragile as much, cracked, and smeared with fear.
We search within ourselves, as all seekers must willingly do,
Searching for a love clear as glass — one that is sharp, and true.
As peach blossoms fall, and small stones roll, know: that through
The times of picking yourself up, some dust gets stuck on you.

The world isn’t so clear, especially if man’s clarity is uninvolved;
Profiting from all our scars – given titles hanging over ourselves
So many times, that prophets need to remind us of who we are
Profits, or prophets, but it all depends on who’s worth you trust.

Did you ever think of staying?
Or was leaving the only way
you knew how to love me?

Was I too much,
or not enough?
Did I ask for things
you couldn’t give,
or did you offer less
than you were able?

I wonder if you held back your truth
to protect me,
or to protect yourself
from watching me fall apart.

The answers don’t come.
But the questions—
they stay.
Lodged somewhere between
my ribs and my memory,
quiet,
persistent,
unanswered.