what do you need
your heart for
if all it does is
give up on someone else's?

you looked me in the eye and it was clear -
as my fingertips traced the outlines of your veins
(i can feel the blood flow)
i realized that you were already flowing through my own
(it makes me feel alive)
you were my heartbeat, dancing slowly inside my rib cage
(it felt like our favorite song)
standing firmly on my mind, calming my soul
as you slept underneath my skin

so if you are my peace, my tranquility -
then why are there moments of dreadful silence
(the calm before the storm)
when i can feel the fear rattling deep inside my bones
(it whispers run, run, run)
if we are supposed to be one and the same
(don't you dare look back)
then why do I feel like you are my Vesuvius
(he will bury you alive)
*and I am your Pompeii?

I've tried rewriting him like he is another poem
embedded between pages of secrets
replacing his eyes with sparkling adjectives
polishing his edges
enabling him to roll off my tongue like I imagined he would
I've traded his scars for words laced in silver
like beautiful words would stop the bleeding
but broken men are not poems
they are not to be sculpted into stanzas
they are time bombs
with three seconds left on the clock
they posses oceans inside their lungs
their eyes are riptides
you cannot rewrite the parts of him
to coincide with the parts of you
they may be broken
their hearts turning black and blue
but the solution to their problem does not begin with you
you can stretch your hands as big as they will go
but it will never be enough to catch their pain
you will drown trying to keep them afloat
the solution to their problem does not begin with you
It will never begin with you

we are a paradox
we're the same soul,
but we come from different planets
we're made of the same flame,
but we burn in different ways