When you closed your eyes for good, the two that I see life through stopped being only mine. 

They’re still green, outlined in dark blue.
Just like yours.
They still squint when I smile.
Just like yours. 
I look in the mirror, and without warning, it’ll feel like I’m looking at you again. 

I laugh and I can see your smile.
Eyes closed. Head tilted down. Teeth showing. 
Just like mine. 

And everyone told me you’re in a better place now.
A little part of me hopes that place is within me. 

I hope our same eyes saw the Pacific Ocean, and the LA lights from the top of the Santa Monica Pier Ferris wheel.

That it’s us smiling, six years later, when your friends still send me pictures and videos of the times you all shared together. 

That you and I are still dancing and singing along to music with each concert I go to.
(Sorry I made you go to Kesha. I really needed that one) 

And when people ask what my natural hair color is I show them a picture of you

cause lord knows how far back I’d have to go to find one of me with no hair dye. 

But we shared that as well. 

Not quite blonde. Not quite brown. Not quite red. 

You used to say “I’m just trying to get my hair as long as Andrea’s.” 
There’s plenty for both of us.

We both hated our nose.
But I’ll never forget riding home with you in the dark summer night.
With the windows down and music blasting and the smell of your Camel cigarette that burned from your hand.

Now it’s like you’re tapping me on the shoulder saying “Hey look” every time I catch that smell again.

I’ll be 32 in a few months.
Three years older than you ever got to be. 
But I’m still that little girl in her bed in the middle of the night writing about you cause I can’t sleep. 

And for some reason everything is easy to write about when wrapped in a memory of you. 

Maybe that’s what they meant by you “being in a better place”.
Just like I was when we were kids

And I’d crawl up into the top bunk of your bed.
 (I still hate sleeping alone) 
 And you’d tell me stories,
And as I’d drift off those stories would become dreams. 

Now through our same green/blue eyes we look at the screen at 2am, and I get to be the medium you use to get them out.