i said goodbye to the first
part of you in Lawrence
thirteen days ago walking
pastthatantiquemall.itrailed
my fingers on its brick and
thought of you reclaiming
my heart in its basement
and i did not want to turn
into dust, did not feel like
melting into the nearest
gutter. i simply took my
hand from the stone,
continued telling
jillian about how
they closed our
hookah bar,
breathed
the early
fall air.

I never much cared for watercolours
I always lose the pigments in the wash
vistas doomed to be overcast
in the pine groves wept from a flaking brush.
I don't like that kind of responsibility.

Give me oil. Thick like Cleopatra's
the meat of all mediums
heat the world with ochre, umber, crimson
spread me with a knife, with sinning hands
my eyes flick around the canvas
wipe the frosting on my red dress
a guilty nun's habit.

But the tide is out again.
The spectrum fades.
Today is for watercolours.
I'll drip steadily from the canvas
and live in the stains on the hardwood floor
peering upward and waiting for April.

i shot off rockets into the sky months ago
that burst into words to  remind me to
keep going     keep breathing     keep
holding my heart   higher than the
river of   y o u r   hands that was
flooding down  m y  street and
threatening   to   break  down
my  door.  i  put all  my  best
pieces in aboxandsentthem
to myself    (cc: my closest
friends)   and i am ready
to get them back, to put
my    h e a r t   on   my
sleeve where i have
always  kept it,  to
have you   f e e l
from across this
town that you did
not break me, did not
damage   me,  did   n o t
destroy my gumption or my
eagerness to take on the world,
did not make me into something
i am not.   i am a    worrier but    a
w        a        r         r        i         o         r
and  i  will  not  stop  going  until  my
head is quiet and my hands are still.
and  this  thing you  did  to me- this
supposedly life altering thing- will
just be a soft  reminder  of  only
the  climb i  made  to get  me
back    to    where    i    am.

There's never been a middle ground for me.
I can be terrifyingly drowning in my insecurities and self-pity one minute
then the loftiest songbird, soaring quaintly without worries the next.
The grey must be a boring place.
And in all optimism, surely there is someone who will accept me
for all my madness and sanity.