I guess God is punishing me
because the days that are marked

by coalescing shades of orange,
pink, red, blue,

are the days that seem to **** the oxygen
right from the air I need.

the way the sky gets
beautiful, purely and immensely

(and it’s not like you get used to them
these devious sunsets

they only get more stunning as the days pass)

I can only see the beautiful things
reflected in those
God forsaken
honey
gold
irises

—

it makes me want to scream,
the way I’m missing pieces of myself,

the way that the sun keeps setting,
painting gold across the sky,

no matter how many times I tell it not to

when the weather settles in my bones,
the way it so often does this time of year,
it leaves me feeling anything but strong

and I don’t need your protection
but I liked the way it held me, anyway

I’ve been singing along to sad songs for at least an hour now
like that will fix me                           like they will change something    
like this all hasn’t happened before

I had forgotten what giving up felt like
until I spent yesterday
trying to unlearn my own name

holding myself together
has become a full time job
that I can’t apologize enough for