You hold echoes of a shift
so plaintively
against the swell
of midnight summer rain—
within the roar of the planes
on cold faded glass
the stuffy air at the airport

There was no way around it
that I could see—
the world still kept its spinning

You lock your stare here
and how I wish
I was packed up too,

snug heartbeats in your leather briefcase.

© BT

Your arms around me are rich, oxblood velvet gloves that match a couture gown, and my lips against your hand are petals.
My own head is so paranoid, and I'm sorry that I make these beautiful things into metal and industrial machines meant for pain. I want nothing more than to love you and from all these bad things, refrain.
Your laugh is a string quartet, your walk is a waltz. I've fallen in love with you, and it's all your fault.
Your eyes are painted with divine murals that reflect myself in a more beautiful way than I've ever seen my own face. It is this luxury, this ballroom that I call your love for me, that constantly leaves me amazed.

Ode to my depression.
Applause to you, my friend.
Lightning strike,
Grey plaid,
Everything oh so bad,
To you,
Depression.
Sharp knife,
Locked door,
No, mom,
I'm not taking nudes.
There was a time when I was 15 and my younger sister joked I was going to become an addict of some sorts,
And I joked back with,
"As an alcoholic."
The look of appeasement trying to joke with me wiped off her face,
Whether I could tell I was joking or not made me question my entire existence.
An avid life of a drinker was not full of red solo cups and parties,
It was full of lonely nights clutching a bottle closely to my chest,
Afraid that it will grow legs and leave me,
Tired of the way my lips caressed the opening to drink the poison that I hoped would succumb me into nothingness.
Much like you,
My darling,
Growing tired and ever weary of the way my grey plaid shirt resembled so much like your heart,
The way lightning struck the ground like your eyes struck me in awe.
I spend my days binge watching shows with endings I have already seen a thousand times,
But what do I do when checking my phone every two minutes becomes routine,
When refreshing my messages becomes apart of my subconsciousness,
When I've drank black coffee so strong that I no longer feel the rush of alertness.
Subway trains echo with the tired grumbles of those stuck in one-frame lives,
Too tired to move forward,
Too stuck to look away from the past.
I know I mean nothing to you just like the dirt beneath the shoes I bought you,
The phone I changed my wallpaper on because it never felt right,
The google browsers cluttered with things like,
"******* yourself without actually dying."
I've become so easily submerged in mundane society,
Routine,
Routine,
Routine.
Wake up,
Drink coffee,
Forget to shower,
Walk out the door,
Hoping my world ends.
Taking that locked door to my bathroom at two in the morning,
Holding a knife with a not-so-ever gentle hand,
My mother knocking on the door I have collapsed upon.
Mother,
I am tired,
But you do not get when I say I am tired.
You do not notice my window covered,
My lights turned off,
My settings on the lowest possible in hopes that heartbreak will never find me,
But the bright light from my phone screen is still too bright and the picture of you while I'm scrolling though my feed on Instagram stops my heart.
My lungs no longer work,
My body goes numb,
Tears that I thought I had run out of the night before have returned.
All I feel is the chest splitting pain that seems to resonate through my body,
Trailing down into my fingertips,
Hands tingling from the absence of your hand in mine.
So I roll over,
Turn off my phone,
I whisper a goodnight.

I suffer from/am blessed with synesthesia, I smell, taste, and feel color. Blue has always been vital to my being, whether it is the color of pajama sets and bed sheets, or speech bubbles on Facebook Messenger, I have grown too attached to blue that the blank whiteness of this document loses its neutrality and starts to hurt.

They say blue is a cold color, then they associate it with a feeling so strong that it has the same symptoms of a heart attack, they turn it into a synonym for heartbreak, and make it the sponsoring color of music meant for heartaches. I associate blue with hearts because I have a list of life elements and they are all blue: writing ink, oceans water, night skies, and I recently added to that list the sanctuary I made of your-my conversation. It is 3:57 pm and I am having the blues, listening to blues, thinking of blues. It is 3:58 pm and my body is burning, no amount of tears my eyes shed can cool me down so no amount of colorologists can convince me that blue is a cold color.

Two months ago, I discovered that the poor human eye was not able to distinguish between green and blue until recently, the poor human mind could not read blue, and I wonder if that means we only recently started to know grief.

I have grown too attached to blue but they opted for green in traffic lights. They preferred green to blue when it takes blue to make green; Blue is the parent. They favored green over blue when blue is the third primary color and the other two family members, feisty red and powerful yellow, are already present in traffic lights; Blue is the parent that never came home. Green stands for progress. Green is a sacred color in Islam. Green is the color of every “environmentally-friendly” label when mother earth is more blue than green, and I wonder if that means this planet has seen more grief than peace.