His mannerisms were peculiar,
His tendencies uncomfortable.
But he held himself as if
the world could never hurt him
And she found beauty in each of his flaws.
Slowly she rooted nearer him
Until she was a vine attached
at every point of his sturdy character.
She was a disease;
He was an evergreen, immune to her venom.

For the days that I speak less,
I do not love you less;
And the days I laugh more,
I may not be happier;
But the days that I tell stories,
Listen to every detail.

She missed him in between meals
and during sentences she read in her books.
She missed that smile of his when the radio played;
His laugh when she smelled the outdoors.
But when she laid her head against her bed pillow,
She no longer missed him
Because she knew he would be there tomorrow.

The words were sharp and stung,
but his caressing touch gave warmth to the ice beneath her shirt.
Like fingers on a chalkboard, he left her.
But his presence remained in the shadows the sun cast
and burned into her body.
His smell was forever around her waist,
his touch forever beneath her breath.

His neck, my hand, pure skin under pale fingers
Words flowing like colors of the sunset
Darker and deeper with every thought.
The blue in my eyes grew monotone as the tears
Drained their color. The emptiness aged
But the affection lived, intensity cultivated a colony.
Pale fingers weaved into the curls he put behind him,
Forgetting the tangled past that defined
The being I am. But his fingers brush my face
And realign my spine. The words ionize into letters
in the sound of his moan I feel in my chest.
And my vision blurs and the intensity goes sharp.
The pins rain from the sky in my head and I think, for once,
What if i stayed?

He spun over bridges made of sky and color
To catch a horse with wings, not to tame her,
But to follow and be with her because
She was beautiful and she didn’t know it.
Falling off clouds, she forgot who she was,
Feeling the pastel blue ache on her skin.
To the touch she was cold but it wasn’t enough
To put out the flames she set in her soul. Her anger
Stemmed from her stomach from the words
She swallowed when eating stones became too hard.
His pastel pink cured her chapped and chipped lips bitten by
The sounds she detested. More words were swallowed.
Her smile was soft and it was true.
But colors mix and her body became purple
And bruised from the memories that were left
From love and passion and loyalty. So she promised
To forget, to let the world collect dust. To stop the
Wind from blowing so we would all exist alone in
Our world. But the man with feet continued over
Her bridge because behind every tear was a smile she
Remembered but lost. And behind every poem and pain
Was a man and he wanted to be every word.

it was 3 AM
you painted
"darling, you’re beautiful"
on my spine
we wanted to feel the ocean hugging
so we drove to the beach
i was almost drunk
you were almost pure,
but i couldn’t remember
what your name
tasted like
i almost forgot
i was
insane