He flirts with lady bugs

Head full of dirt

Green snot leaks towards lip

He finds her voice in all the right places
those hands that hold rib cage

Breath

She says

Shadows dance
On quivering honey locus leaves
Day Lillies
Toss pollen to the wind
Remember this moment
She whispers

And my love will always find you

I set the pace of my breathing to match the healing of my heart;
It's painfully slow and I'm not sure how much more it can take.
I watch myself from outside the window
As my chest struggles to rise against your weight.

I'm lying down and she knows how difficult it is for me
Yet she takes another step until both feet are firmly planted on top of my ribcage.
Gravity crushes every glimmer of hope that I had to make it through this task alive.
Once she sees the light leave my eyes she begins to relieve the pressure.

The world around me is hard to discern.
My eyes are unable to frame each detail which engulfs my body,
But when I look at her it's like God himself has washed me clean
And I am able to make out the outline of something I once loved.

But I can't help but to writhe in discomfort as his arms wrap around her waist
While I diligently sweep the floor that they dance across.
My head is drawn down towards the ground in an attempt to spare myself--
It didn't work.

I tried.
Oh god, did I try,
But my limbs became too heavy to withstand the weight of you leaving me,
So I had to slip outside.

This heart feels foreign as it battles for its life.
I do not know her anymore.
Green eyes have become desaturated and all I can envision is a hollowed body.
Are you really doing okay?

If there is a god, or if magic was real I think I'd wish for her to be happy again.
I long to love myself and to feel vibrant in my own skin,
But I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't sacrifice it all
Just to see her truly smile.

Time is elusive and I know this is a dangerous place to be seen in.
It's torturous to toy with the notion that somehow things could've turned out differently,
So I return back to the girl inside the window pane.
She hates me, but I'm not ready to let her go...

I set the pace of my breathing to match the healing of my heart;
It's sluggish and morbid, but it feels like a fresh start.

She is clumsy
but on the outside
she is elegant

She is wise beyond her years
but on the outside,
She trips over her words

She has troubled thoughts
but on the outside,
She smiles

She is in love
but on the outside,
She cannot meet his gaze

She cries during any movie with emotion
but on the outside,
She is untouchable and cold-hearted

She is a hopeless romantic
but on the outside,
She is a lonely pessimist

She is a vulnerable girl
but on the outside,
all you can see is her walls

my conscious,
a spec on the corner of the Polaroid lens,
a heart lost in the reeds of dampened circumstance,
a hydrangea blooming in an untended field,
meditates upon itself
like a child lost
in a superstore.

--

an ocean wave mimics its predecessor
only to fall victim to aspiration.

what will crush upon my tired bones
as they chase sunsets
in a similar search
for meaning
?