you led me to a field of baby pink clouds
with fairy lights in your stomach
and sunflowers wrapped around your thighs;
you were radiating like magnesium on fire.
you could drive across the oceans
or fly underground if you wanted.
you held the light in your hands
and your toes tingled with happiness.
we laughed with red velvet poppies,
cried with lavender-scented blades.
i stopped laughing,
stopped crying;
you had stopped laughing too,
but you were still crying.

the sunflowers that kissed your thighs
were beginning to wilt with doubt
and seeped into your skin,
and the fairy lights that shined in your stomach
burned you to death from the inside,
leaving you feeling nothing.

i sang songs of hope into your lungs
in attempt to revive you,
but you had buried yourself six feet underground
and left your friends three feet through.
i didn't give up though.
i refused to give up.
i sang songs of hope
until they became cries for help.
i was so desperate to keep you in one piece
that i had fallen and shattered into millions of pieces,
yet i shoved the shards into my mouth
and kept them under my tongue
while you told me
that you admired how strong and carefree i could be.

the thing is, dear melisa,
it's hard to tell others not to worry,
     when you yourself worry.
it's hard to convince others to live to see another day
     when you don't even know if you can make it out alive.
it's hard to stay standing strong
     when you feel like everyone around you is falling.

i cried for help
for you.
i cried because
i wanted you
to be able
to feel again.

you asked for 15 minutes
to play with clear glass marbles
and grieve in it;
but instead twirled with dragons
in a clever patchwork and
a rodeo in your bandwagon.
light killed you on a crucifix
auditioning to give your spirit a lift;
started it all when you were six.
rented a loft to store your tears
hide hair ribbons in nail holes
that have been dead for thirty years.
you wanted to release hammers between sets
but you were stuck making french fries in coffee shops
and you hadn't told your husband yet.
now the clock reads eight and you're on your knees,
praying to saint margaret,
begging her to cut your cheek.

silk flows from the left side of the mountain
as we walk along the shore with our fingers intertwined.
there are carnations growing from the slits in your wrists
and daisies dripping from the dagger you found in the clouds.
flashes of loneliness fill the decaying spaces,
alluring you to stab your vertebrae
and leave with tomorrow's sunrise in your pocket.
ocean waves crash into all four corners of the darkness  
that sang lullabies into your iridescent lungs.
the berceuses grow shards of glass under your skin
that you use to shave your cotton candy hair
and watch the sky fall with it.
you're laughing with the wind
at your shattered bones and imploded organs,
daisy-dagger in hand.
yellow paint spills from your lips
as you play with turtle shells and shark heads
that haunt my mind for centuries.
you whisper to the hollow valleys as
your summer laughs turn into winter cries.

i want to fix you.
for you i will carve the tumor out of your chest
with the same shards of glass you used to cut your tangled locks.
i will shelter you in a makeshift umbrella of my body
if it meant the toxic rain wouldn't seep into your veins.
for you i will gather the stars in your hourglass of worries and regrets
so there will be nothing but light after the darkest of times pass.

there are carnations growing from the slits in your wrists
and we're walking along the shore with our fingers intertwined
as silk flows from the left side of the mountain.