it's the darkness
and the dead of the night
that make my mind open up
when the city lies down
taking midnight strolls down memory lane
and the circles under my eyes
start to match the nighttime sky

he was an unswept floor
she was unsolved rubik's cube

he taught her to write poetry
she taught him to love

she said that love was a butterfly
he'd never even been in a cocoon

he said that words were twelve story buildings
she was afraid of heights

he was a creaky old cabin
she was an unfinished jigsaw puzzle

but he had the missing piece, lost in the dust behind his rickety counters
and she was a fixer upper, looking for a renovation

they were red stripes with orange plaid
they were mismatched socks

both so different
both so lost

I am holding on to your words like breaths of air
and it's not right to suffocate myself like this
replaying you like an old tape that skips
broken memories to match the shards of glass inside
on which I've cut myself too many times
lyrics that mean nothing but memories
a beat that makes the pit in my stomach grow
louder than the colours on your bedroom wall
and I can paint with them all.
paint the awkward hugs goodbye
the chance encounters on the street that we were never lucky enough to have
I can paint over the population sign
but you'll always inhabit my mind

You slithered up and left your sheds on my front porch, like a serpent i made crawl out of it's own skin
Yet on the new skin the bruises remain and it's too bad our minds can't shed old layers of things that we never want to remember