her skin shone like moonstone
as if the universe she held
was able to illuminate her
bedroom as she stood before me.
for so long she was nothing
but a daydream. an unexplored
option that I was too nervous
to venture to. but the way her
hands held mine and how sweet
the *** tasted when it sat on
her lips intoxicated me. I had
to touch her face to assure myself
that she is in fact real. that it
was really her navy blue eyes
that begged me to give in.
she was the most beautiful being
and she was just against my
fingertips. she held my heart
between her teeth, holding
the power to devastate me.
what was there to be afraid of?

he called me the most beautiful
shade of gray, a questioning elegance
that held a mystery he couldn’t resist.
I saw him as the dark nighttime air,
swallowing and suffocating whatever
light was offered. and I told myself
that nothing good could come from
this, from being swallowed whole.
but his hands were so gentle
and his voice soothing that I lost
myself in the night’s embrace.

black is the absorption of all colors.
I found the harder I looked, the more
shades I could dissect. he was an
intoxicating red that coarse through
your veins like a virus. he had deep
blues and purples that you had to be
careful while swimming in, do not
submerge yourself too deeply into
those waters or you yourself would lose
your way. he had colors collected by a
lifetime of aspirations and disappointments
and rejected love and affections.
you could see the cracks in the colors
where he fell too short, before he
was stained by circumstances and
obligations. when he was a white
slate, barely turning gray,
vulnerable and new.

you are an exquisite pain,
an acquired taste for tears.
to love you and to leave unscathed
is like running through the summer forrest
and trying not to be torn by the thistles.
my flesh split to pieces
yet there is more blood to give
and wolves are howling in the distance,
they won’t give up.
the agony, the ache
of the almost that is ‘us’.
to graze something so wonderful
but in the end, fall short.
to love you is to give you my all
and have you still ask for more.
to drain the light from my eyes,
chasing until vanished
and I am left here, in the dark
with no way out.

the hours pass like minutes now
I collect them under the covers
as their pressing persistence
deafens with each dream.
my mother enters the room
in an effort to wake me
from the dead, to try and
mend the broken bones
you yourself left.
why does she have
to clean up your mess?
my own guilt concretes
my chest, paralyzing me further.
to hear my mother’s concern,
her worry. but I have felt
this heartbreak many times
over. your fracture lines are
all over my body, some are
just easier to hide than others.
I stay in bed and dream
of how you stayed. of how
you chose me. back to
Sunday mornings under covers,
our smiles visible by the gray-lit
sky. I can still feel you skin
running beneath my fingertips.
so I stay in my bed. and that
should be none of your concern,
it’s the only way I know
to survive knowing you.

you could store water
in the wells dipped deep
into my neck where
your grip once was.
your hold is too strong,
its weeds choke my lungs,
steals my own words
to replace with your own.
I was your garden
and I felt your hands
uproot my ugly, but you
took the flowers away too.
I stand now, an arboretum
of almosts and painful potential.
you leave me barren so
I have nothing to offer,
nothing of my own.
I wait to claim back
myself, all that I have,
and I am almost ready.

felt your warmth
crawl inside the empty
bones of Springfield
and I offered a sigh
of relief.

it wasn’t home without you
and I couldn’t breathe
without witnessing
a little part of me drifting
away every time.

for a year it sat as
a museum.
and for a year I tried
to trace our old paths
but the streets were
no longer familiar.

it was an empty house
my empty house
that I had once lived in
and each weekend I
would return to it,
trying to figure out
where everything
once was.