I still remember when satin robes weren’t for people like us.

 

We’d sit on plush couches made of cotton and middle school memories as the bodies wrapped in lace reminisced of better days. 

 

          ...you wouldn’t be there much longer... 

 

You were fragile—like the Freddie Mercury record busted by your mother—she never liked how I was like my brother. 

 

But that was you: appreciated yet easily broken. 

Much less like the words that were spoken

From lips so tender but a mind so strong 

How did I know it would be your last song?

 

But you still wrapped yourself in satin ties and twirled to Mercury beats on pruny feet as if the scent of a tearful shower didn’t linger on the words you sing. 

 

                             ...I still hear you...

 

And she ruined it. 

Cut it up. Effortlessly.

She’s used to destroying.

And just like the record, it sat in pieces around angry house shoes that said 

 

“Little boys don’t wear satin clothing!”

 

And you cried, but tears were only for little girls with Barbie minds,

And you held it out to me as if the depression on my expression was enough to make it not become another memory of better times.

 

                     ...FIX IT...

 

You cried. Please fix it.

 

And the harder we cried the harder it was to not believe that satin wasn’t for the gay eye. 

 

Our freshman minds didn’t possess the knowledge to sew back happy times. 

And we couldn’t fix it.

 

Much less like now.

Lace bodies only another memory in plush cushions.

Inanimate objects too irrelevant for eulogy material.

 

And when there aren’t enough showers in the world to hide tears too fragile to be bulletproof.

And

when pieces of a record buried with friendly souls aren’t enough to time travel. 

 

We still remember a moment when we could’ve fixed it.