Last night you told me every intersection was embedded in a deficiency & I wondered

if that was why a terrace kept growing in me—

One that resembled the platform out of the green-shielded window in our highschool classroom.

A rectangle, polished tiles exposed like a wet calf.

I never understood why they built such vastness if no one was allowed to be in it.

Then, the sun was never exhausted & we didn’t mind being porous in a box.

When the security guards left for dinner, we would climb out one after another

& bend our stomachs over the smooth edges.

The bars still warm as we smelled glitter from the lawn.

Then, we were all capable of falling for small splendors.

Wooden benches that bore the sweat prints of our hands.

Limbs striving to be whimsical with formulas—we invented holes in the mud of our brains.

In class, I was praised for solving questions like an arch

yet in all of my dreams I was a ruptured net leaking circles.

Instead of walking, I floated like a fantasy

mapping out the shape of a miracle—its irregularity and dead-ends.

We jumped with our hands wide open and mumbled like crickets

talking about ticklish grass, tandem bicycles, serious toothpastes without a tropical hint.

The whole June that last summer, I stayed up until 5 to notice how the leaves

were awakened not by lights, but presence.

S, I always believe in the stars, their rules and encounters governed by time.

But sometimes I prefer to think about the fireflies roaming aimlessly on that terrace,

how they can also be treasured, like shooting stars,

off track & miraculous.