The color of sadness
Is the blue of the room
Where I laying calling out to you

The weight of sadness
Is all of the ocean
Gathered in the sound of “no”

It is a harsh velvet rope
In tropical heat
Strangling slowly
Every fleeting joy

I have measured it all
In every way
Just so I could
Hold it there and say
“I will love you again”

If I could love
the limping
ugly
afraid
part of me
That I drag through the mud
and thorns

If I could let
the transparent
clawing
screaming
silhouette speak
Instead of kicking it
into the basement

If I could put
my deepest human essence
onto paper
for everyone to see

Then.
Then, I could be free.

ink runs from the corners
of my mouth
there is no happiness
like mine
i been eating poetry

There was a time...
The first rhyme
You ever read to me
That time when I,
Once unappreciative,
But that night...
Fell in love with it.
You recited your hurt like art,
A delicate voice,
But with trembling heart.

During those early days of early love.
I always wanted to read along as you read aloud.

And I would've died to be the page you'd slaved upon.
Tears, blood, passion unrivaled like a daring dawn
That fights the night till the day is gone.
Perhaps it was to feel connected to you,
But I began to write my stories too.
I threaded them together painstakingly,
Usually in the lonesome limbos I felt achingly,
Anxiously,
And it took so long to share myself with you.

Did you know you were the first to ever see them?
You always thought I was beautiful.

Once again, you encouraged the fire free.
And this isn't the only sea
You've taught me to sail.
Now I place my work here
With the sheer raw emotion I so dearly make clear.
It is one of the few things I've made mine.
I never said I had talent, but at least I can rhyme!
And now?

Now I write for me.

I will stumble over my words
while I stumble
into you.
Show me where you are wicked,
and I will show you
mine.
Let me taste the pitch black
ink as it drips from
your lips,
and you can read to me
the thoughts you hold
close.
Take me to the place within
where you are not pulled
into a thousand directions,
that one place where
you are still,
that one place where
you are home.

You wanted a love like in the movies;
rain drenched white shirts, palms covered
in daisy pollen; I love you more than--
a phone call, long distance, your fingers
curling the telephone wire like you're pulling me
towards you
like a fibre optic pheromone.
Soundtracks of a jazz piano, and old jukebox hits,
flared skirts and Mary Jane shoes, square dancing.

But most of the time, we don't get to choose
the colour of the bedsheets. In this story,
I know you're going to leave me. I can sense
the zoom of your eyes, rolling away from me.
The lighting in the room, like the ones where something
awful is about to happen: a sad, sick orange
like a cheap sunset; the music, or lack thereof,
the way you bite your lip like you're about to
break my heart.

You look to the ground, and I know this is where
the narration will start;

this is the story of the first time
someone broke my heart.  
She's going to look up at me
and say the words,
It's all over-

and in a jump frame
the thunderclap will mask the sound
of my heart shattering, the sob disappearing
into my throat.

You wanted a love like in the movies,
honey,
we all did.

But then the rain came, and the flowers
drowned in their beds.
You left your umbrella by the doorstep,
I hope you don't catch a cold.

she gave me her nudes
she was bare
and naked
and so out
and open
and i willingly
accepted it
because it wasnt the nudes
that showed her body
the physical aspects
that made her beautiful
it was the words
she didnt choose
and the spontaneity
that left her
either from her lips
or her fingers
or ink

she was as bare
as her nudes
and i accepted
her for her.

There are freckles on my hands that you failed to notice and scars on my knees you picked at with jagged fingernails,
never asking for a story.
I found your mother's name in pieces underneath your bed while mine was tattooed clearly across my chest.
You attribute your silence  to solidarity in independence whereas I argue you are a shell of a man
and god,
i wanted to fill you with all the daisies and honey i had left.
You "Can't Do This Anymore",
a white flag riddled in hopelessness,
I could do this for the rest of my life.
There's muddy footprints outlining the path you took away from me,
I'll place my small step in each one as I follow you slowly,
and perhaps you'll wait for me at the end.