The night holds its knife
Close to the threads that hold my soul
It stretches its fingers across the blade
And sends me surging into the starry skies

Until the morning comes with its blanket
Covering all of me with its threads
Renewing me with purpose and life
Each time it stretches

With each passing hour
A frail voice consumes me
I'm left paranoid and hollow
By the time the night creeps in

Like an old stranger walking in my head
Their footsteps rattle me
Shattering the interweaving
That hold this mask in place

My nerves weaken as does my will
Until I think upon the lilies
Blooming in the sleepiest of dawns
I let go of my blanket

Before her, I was
Tipped over in the doorway,
South-facing as a loose tooth
Plucked from sore gums.

There is a affinity shared with her
In this gloomy dark hair, like graphite
Fingerprints wiped on my featureless cranium; and how

Before me, she was
Broken as the noon's fever. Her boyish
Hips fanning out, abdicating space
For my tiny anemone palms to measure their wingspan.

There is a flood of adrenaline
Simmering the film in paragoric dampness; and
Suspending us in a jellylike expectancy.

The contours and curves
That shape the heart
And the rivers that overflow
Pass through those ridges

A thrum within me
Ebbs, flows, and repeats your name
Until one day
The thunder struck

I felt the scenery come alive
It was the sound of my voice
That called to me
From inside

My head is always a cloudy sky
On days when it turns grey
The sun hides away
And very few play in the rain

The empty streets of my skin
Are pockmarked with lush trees
The rain goes and there's a sunny day
Most hide in the shade

This heart was once a home
A couch caked in dust
Cobwebs have made the corners their residence
Its garden is filled with weeds instead

It was the books,
The same ones I read,
Over the summers,
In the libraries
That told me it was okay to wish.
So I wished,
For a **** body,
Like the ones on the posters.
I did not get that,
So I moved on.

It was probably TV,
The shows with eternal love,
Chemistry that was across lifetimes,
Romance and slow dances.
So I wished again,
For a tall funny man,
He will be my mirror I thought,
That shattered too

Why wish at all?
It is a futile thought
Like the sky you’ll never reach.

You’re the reason every song turns into a requiem.
Even the happy ones bend under the weight of your name.

The reason love walks with a blade behind its back,
because you turned it into something I had to survive.

You’re the reason
breathing feels borrowed.
Like I’m stuck in a waiting room
with no doors,
no answers,
just clocks that won’t tick
and memories that don’t know how to leave.

You’re the reason I bleed into pages,
why I stretch sorrow into sentences,
why I carve light
from the ruins.

You taught me grief in its native language,
how to cradle absence like a relic,
how to shape silence into meaning.

You’re the reason I learned to carry longing
instead of trying to cure it.
To live inside the hollow
and still find warmth.

You’re the reason I know
that love and loss
can belong to the same moment.

You are my reason.
The one that never left.