Can we just sit alone in the dark
and talk about the world?
The dreams you had, bright as the sun
shimmering in your eyes.

You had a dream, you say,
where you and I were snuggled in bed
city lights flickering outside the window
but inside, all was safe and sound.

This could never be so
as we are separated by miles and miles
but we entertained the fantasy anyway
with your warmth next to mine.

You imagine me kissing you on the mouth
I imagine you nuzzling my throat
we can talk all we please
but it may not ever be so.

Yet, we made a promise still
to sleep in that dark room together
with the city glowing in the night
for us to be sleeping soundly.

And, for now, we will speak through screens
and texts, and written words and smiles
until that bed is ours, and we can doze off
into the milky orb of infatuation and oblivion.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
passion would be where magenta and orange kiss the horizon at sunset,
joy would be the yellow of my socks every easter sunday that i can remember,
and melancholy would be just another shade of blue.

i told him,
i am not done with you yet.
three weeks post breakup,
we shouldn't feel as unfinished as we do.
like, in the ridiculously complicated narrative of he and i,
the author got up one day,
scribbled a quick ending,
and then set the novel on fire.

i read an article in an obscure magazine
about Shelley Jackson,
an artist
who got thousands of people
to tattoo a singular word
from a story onto themselves,
and then sent them back to their scattered existences.

maybe that is what this is,
another scattered story.
another vaporized narrative.

i can feel it in the air,
but not pull the phrases together.
it's like trying to hold onto smoke.
our story slips through my fingers and gets in my eyes.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
my ribcage would look like a Jackson *******.
my head would be a paintball arena.

i am so full of indigos,
and mustards,
and crimsons,
that Van Gogh, himself, would dip into my palette
and claim to have never seen such beautiful sadness before.

i don't know if it hurts because it still matters,
or if it matters that it still hurts.

i feel the frenzied ache of creation in my gut.
i am not a painter,
but my mirror is showing me
the immaculate collection of brushstrokes
i have become.

a few weeks ago,
i was approached by an artist who offered to paint my bruises.
to collect my contusions with watercolors.

what a beautiful intention,
to immortalize the growing pains,
memorialize the bumps along the way,
to make something permanent
of these perpetual transitions.

if we were to assign emotions to colors -
my pride would be gold-plated and rusting from use, like my grandfather's watch,
courage would be the pure green of every bud that has dared to grow through concrete,
and love?
love would be prismatic,
like spilled oil on asphalt.

a rainbow one moment,
vanished the next.

I don't have to see you
to know who you are
to know that you're beautiful in every way
words achingly sweet, like sugar and sorrow.

We met at the bottom of the sea
in a mirage of fleeting words
as we both left for our separate islands
thoughts dripping like water droplets on the sand.

I never saw the way you frown
the way your eyes lit up when you smile
or the scratches on your wrists
to know that I can't survive without you.

Though you are out of reach
alone with your own love on your island
I cannot forget who you are
and the dulcet tastes of your syllables.

So, if I could, I would slip into the deep
for I would not need air
I would only need you, and your sweetness
and, if it is for not, let me drown.

Please, just let me drown.

To amend all of my previous statements I have made
about love, a topic that I really have no knowledge of
I will attempt to be as frank and honest as possible.
Well, as honest as poetry can be.

I cannot promise you an eternity.

Not only would that be drastic, but also inconsiderate
as the days to come may be darker than the night sky
and who will know when our feelings may drift apart
Like little leaves in the wind.

Nor can I truly love you the same forever.

Because people change, our hearts grow and shrink
with new experiences, failures, and successes too.
I know this, for my heart swells at the passing air
Whenever I think of you.

So, instead of those meaningless cliches, I would rather ask for a pact.

For us to grasp hands lying under the sunshine
knowing that the storm is brewing on the horizon
and to brave it as best we can together, and only
When we cannot take it, we will let go.

There is a significant chance we won't make it to the end
and I know this, it haunts me every second I consider it
but now, and only now, I can safely tell you my love
To my heart's content.

I love you, without negative connotation,
and I fear, I worry, I brood over everything
Fear is an old friend of mine, an acquaintance
so I cannot forget, or atone, only amend my faults.

I have no eternities to promise, no delusions of grandeur
just the throbbing of my heart, the babbling of my mouth
and a love that grows with the passing of seconds
all laid bare on the tops of the hill, overlooking the storm.

I ask no romanticism, just one action: *Take my hand, take my heart, and take my soul, and together will we walk.