I have shattered love
every time is was close enough
to touch

my heart, rented out to anyone
who could fill it

just for a second

just for a minute to not  
feel the emptiness

that lingers in the pit of my stomach

like the last leaf of Autumn,
clings desperately to the branch
of a bare tree

but love left no time to linger

it ran like water
between my fingers

until the puddle of heartbreak
was deep enough to drown in

a flower doesn’t shed its petals
merely to be seen naked

it sheds them
to show the other flowers

that it is okay to be
vulnerable

they say the things you lose
come back to you, one day

but I lost them for a reason,
shed my skin like a snake

and if those things find me, again

I’ll ******* burn those bridges
remorselessly, again

when singing failed

I screamed

and the bars of

my cage finally

shattered

into a million pieces

of freedom

like a starved dog
I will devour you
in an instant

without thought
or feeling

and in that instant
I will consume you
as the air consumes
everything around it

I will dissolve into
that air and become
edge -
less

so that where I end
and you begin
is merely a concept
long buried in
the murky swamp

where creation began

we are stardust
scattered across the night
sky

our love as fickle as
midnight

hearts as cold as the
moon

we are all made of
particles

of memory

that can never
reoccur

as poets,
we carved our hearts
out of pencil and
ink,

every drop of feeling
was a metaphor,

every echo of "I love you"
had been written
before,

how on Earth could we
ever learn how to exist
in reality?

for our passions
to become more
than a dance
on a page,

to feel and not knee-
**** into action
over our laptops
at 4am...

but I loved you,
and not for my page
or pen or protagonist,

but for your pencil -
sketched heart

that I dreamt of
filling in red