You found me
stuck staring
at rearview mirror reflections
of wintry, dusk intersections
of everything leaving me
all at once.
A forced exhale
of asphyxia caged
in collapsing lungs;
my mouth,
a fountain spring,
that coughed out
pools of blood.

I wish I saw myself
the way you saw me;
not a red traffic light
wounding speeding cars
on winding streets,
but an antique heirloom
priceless enough
you'd only wish
you could keep
in a heart-shaped box
you saw in dreams.

But, I'd cut my tongue,
paint my lips cherry shades
to blend with cells that'd stain
handkerchiefs you'd offer.
Make you believe
this isn't going to foster
because you are indecision,
unfinished watercolor landscapes
of summer forest fire skies,
a sun-kissed Pacific wanderer.
And I am true crime
untouched evidence of break-ins,
remains of faulty locks and lights.
I am mosaics misaligned;
static, seabed cracks
from forgotten fault lines.
Gaping fissures of sand,
and salt that won't let me stitch
frayed skin-deep fibres
barely holding me in.

Oceans would have to empty themselves
into whirring cyclones and high tides
for our selfish sense of touch to collide.
Ice caps would have to sink
deep enough to even bruise my skin.
And I wouldn't want to watch
more Shakespeare end
before it begins.

See, I am the one
with sharp edges,
but why
did you have to be the one
to clip my wings?

There is only an abyss
without a trampoline,
a safety net,
a bed of waterlilies,
I could fall in.
And I am so tired
of paradoxes
and ironies;
of always being wanted
by someone who doesn't even
want to be kept,
of always being mended
and then left
with more dislocations,
and fractures,
one after another
each taking longer to fix.

Now, in shapeless parcels,
without return addresses
sent out into the void
these words will echo
of love
I never intended to borrow,
and shadows
of false hope
you never thought yourself
capable of
giving away.