limiting reactant: that’s you & that's me
both of us standing on a cliff,
neither of us jumping
is this chemistry worth the kind that will decompose our hearts at the bottom of the ocean
or the kind that burns my empty hands

ideal law: ideally, breaking it
you're in the driver's seat, wrist on the wheel
our pulses driving the car and pulsing in the floorboards
speed, velocity, distance,
the physical sciences
(my lipstick distracts you from the road)

balancing equations:
you: black flame, glistening furiously
me: god knows what i am but clear and soft
disaster: the explosion is all-consuming, a violent display of reactivity and fire
people stand in awe, wishing they could be destroyed by something so beautiful

welcome to a place you used to call home and now is full of strangers

the smell of coffee, forgotten faith, and lost memories cling to the bronze walls - broken friendships (at least partially your fault) taste like bitter chocolate and your could-have-beens echo off the high ceilings

upside down city lights drown in the reflection of leftover rainwater - your tires slash through them and you think quietly about the skin on your forearms

your favorite album isn’t enough to drown the pit of guilt in your stomach and the raindrops don’t wash away your anxiety no matter how hard you wish that they will

what used to be a mirror is now broken, and the shards jab at you, not hard enough to break your skin, but enough to know that something is very wrong

that candle you forgot to blow out last night makes your room smell like every other thing that you left unattended until they grew to be too big for you to handle anymore

you are odysseus, and the world is both scylla and charybdis. you can only hope you’ll make it home.

everything is present tense now,
you, me, them, us, standing
crying, laughing, creating
me, thinking of things to say,
but now i won’t bite my tongue
(at least, not as much)
and now i’ll hope that i can forgive myself
for being open
“why would you feel guilty about your own happiness?”
a **** good question, the answer to which
is one long scream of
BECAUSE I ALWAYS HAVE AND I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ELSE
over and over again until even the void of the night sky
screams it back at me
(i can find perseus now, and taurus,
but cassiopeia is still my broken queen,
and i still see my eyes reflected in the seven sisters)
i hope i can forgive myself
for not selling myself short anymore,
for keeping my own heart warm,
for not pretending to be a Me i no longer believe in
(she deserves better!!!! i yell at myself)
(she always did!!!!! i yell back)

you hated the color yellow
well, **** that

i'm reclaiming all the words i wrote about you
taking back my metaphors
i am the sun
a thousand stars glow in my eyes
i am the night sky, the morning light, a hundred secret gardens, the entire ocean, and you are no longer anything more than a sand dollar floating somewhere amidst my consciousness
and i am a million golden sunsets

you hated the color yellow
but now my hair is gold my heart is gold my eyes are gold
and i'm done letting your darkness in

fall

like chocolate cake, sparkling water, scarlet lipstick

cold outside, warm bones, my fingers stained orange 

ablanket of leaves wrapped around me to shield from a sideways wind

winter

like stale generic coffee, warm lighting in panicked hotel rooms, hours on the phone

butterflies barely hinting at spring and a lot of other new beginnings

peppermint makes way for a new kind of warmth and i listen to your song on repeat

spring

like color in my eyes, in my hair, barefoot and shivering on the swings

long conversations behind dying headlights, tasting our city late at night

a broken heart among other things and an electric sky pushing me to freedom

midnight

like standing in the street, a crowd of messy souls bathed in a green glow

i can see my favorite constellations, sirens in the distance pull me towards the sky

i am alive, not alone, the sun is not the first one awake for once

you

like warm golden sunlight i can still feel on my skin even after the clouds appear

i. WATER: straightforward enough just make sure she can breathe still; not just the kind in her throat, she needs the ocean, a spirit somehow both constant and ever-changing; you may try to hand her the umbrella but it'll never work, she'd rather drink the sky and wear it in her hair than anything else

ii. FOOD: keep it on hand; lemonade, strawberries, coffee and donuts, pasta; don't get it confused with thought, don't refrigerate a monet, don't put haring in the cabinet; she'll drag you to the museums but i swear it'll be worth it when you see her full and bright and alive against those canvases

iii. WARMTH: wrap her up in your arms every second you see her; wear your favorite cologne and i guarantee she will notice every time; she rises for the sun but lives for the stars, don't forget about the way she turns her face to the sky every time she goes outside; her glow is strong but every so often she'll need a little bit of yours to stay alive