You are my catharsis and my curse.
Doomed to live on my shoulders,
dedicated to twisting my neck until it breaks.
Forever whispering in my tired ears
the things I so desperately want to hear.
Wiping the tears from my bloodshot eyes,
before they have the chance to paint
my cheeks in your favorite colors.
Pulling on my expired heartstrings with the ink
you could never stand behind.

The most beautiful voices will always
remind me of your loss
and the harshest ones will provide solace
in your perpetual absence.
But loss has become my most prized possession
and no voices can take it from my grasp.
No matter how scarred my knees become,
no matter how cracked my lips feel,
no matter how calloused my palms get,
I'll hold onto you with everything I have,
because you being my catharsis, is my curse.

Seeking shelter in the fabric
that protects us from a winter morning,
we still live in the illusion
that we'll capture every sunrise
for the chance to see a reciprocal smile
in the air's early radiance.
With two figures connected
in a deceitful penumbra
we can reminisce about
the memories we fail to make
and the scars we gently place
on one another's bare wrists.
As our breath forms a silhouette
in the sun's nascent rays,
we awaken to the empty space in our grasp
reserving our connection only for the moments
in which our minds lay idle.
Decomposing in a gray reality
but thriving in a vibrant trance.

In the middle of a tempest,
I would walk you home
hand in hand,
a million times.
Even if you were the rain
pouring down on us,
hiding the tears covering
the space between our eyes and lips.

Your face is as pale as the clouds.
Somewhere I'll look
to see you in each journey
from the car to the front door.

It's those moments
that I feel your hand in mine
and pull at the empty space
to remind myself of the loss
that surrounds illegitimate memories.

While the pillows aren't the same,
and the dust doesn't collect like it used to,
my skin has forgiven me
for leaving behind your porcelain touch
and my lungs breathe the Florida air easier.

But it doesn't stop my eyes
from craving the chase
of stray red hairs on the sheets,
knowing they would be replaced
in the most relieving nightly reunion.

Still, the scars fade into the void,
every day, one by one.
And the ones that spell your name
have become as faint as your image.
The Florida air holds a debt I could never repay.

Am I the wilted flower
or the towering oak?
Abandoned by the leaves
who so wish to see me thrive,
only to rejoin me
in a most relieving spring.
Like an old friend,
they know me and complete me.
Speaking in a tongue
reserved for those with new skin.
The perished fallen I've shed
live only in a resentful reflection
having strayed miles away
in time's senseless winds.
Perhaps by now they've crumbled
under the weight of our separation.
Their limbs one with the soil,
their frames dust in a still, winter air.

Once a glowing porcelain,
your skin has long shed its warmth.
Manifested through raging fire,
what's left sits atop branches hastily gathered.

So make use of the foreign breath
you've deviously collected
and try to keep the blaze at bay.
Exhaling their toxic fumes,
you'll only feed the flames.

Immolated, you concede to the heat
and I still extend a hand,
only to be pulled to my death
as dedication burns me alive.