i was young and
didn't know what i was doing
i made it all mean
nothing
i made it
easy
i let them hold me and then
do what they wanted

and there's this ache
not being able to let you
touch me
you are
the person i want to remember
touching me last

it's like i'm watching you
through a glass window
and i can't feel your warmth
or just
your ******* ******* touch

i want
to feel something

i want
to be clean

you are my ticket
out of here
away from
unwanted memories and
unwanted company

you give me
freedom
i can think clearly
with you
and for those few minutes
or hours
or seconds
depending on the moment
i get to forget
about who they were
and what they did
because all that matters
is right now
and us

and so when i tell you
you don't know
how much you mean to me
it's because you don't

they killed me
and left me laying dead
all used and worn out
and torn
but when i feel
even the slightest sway
of your fingertips
on my cheek
i am alive again
and i feel
as if i never lost anything
or better
like they never even touched me

there is this certain
feeling of burning
in being hated
for what you see

or what you can't see

because of ways that your mind
does and does not work

this feeling of
disgust
and evil
and your hands
now seem too slender
bony

you are
a part of something scary
and dead
you can pick apart
your face
and skin

every
beauty mark
as you go along your body
it now all seems
ugly
and bumpy
imperfection
is housed in your figure

and now
all i can see
is *****, stained skin
the farthest thing
from perfect

but

you already saw all of this
in me, didn't you?

i wonder

if the miles between us

ever think to let go

just let this pair of

young, hopeless kids

finally touch each other's faces

but every morning i wake up

alone

in this bed fit for one

yet seemingly growing by the minute

and i see the miles don't care

about us or

what we feel

they only care to

keep us away

that's what they're there for

not that they

are trying

to keep us apart

but

they aren't meant to bring us

closer together

either

she wanted to die.
like you,
except, only once
at a time where you loved her
but didn't know it yet.

she - brown eyes,
perfect smile (at least you think so),
dimples, white teeth, obnoxious laugh.
you - tripping fingers, shaky hands,
full lungs, tapping feet,
brown eyes.

the two of you, dull.
unnoticed, like the warning labels
on your bottle of painkillers
and her prozac.

the warmth, absent and missing
like the liquor someone must
have taken from the refrigerator.

you thought, it's useless
to live for nothing except pain and
numbness and numbness
and numbness.

she thought, it's useless
to live for nothing.

the two of you, wanting to die
trying to die
but didn't. couldn't,
like that one time you wouldn't
get out of bed.

and now, together.
both smiling, laughing fully
but not complete.

the warmth, there but
not burning.
about just enough to keep a
fire going.

though she swears she feels
the heat,
you are still gaining back
your fingertips
from the numbness.
numbness.

numbness.

you thought, it's useless
to die if she is here.
and now, living.

the missing, gone
like the old medicine you flushed
instead of taking.

and your brown eyes, still dull.
hers, too.
except louder, now, and shinier.
demanding, like the heavy parts of the earth.

together, and complete.

she wanted to die.
and you wanted to die, too.
and "never again"
she says, "because you're never
leaving me,
and i'm never leaving you."

the flowers died

when you ripped them up

out of the ground

-

remember?

each night

in my bed

i call for the space to shrink up

and it never

does

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
those angry voices wouldn't bruise so blue
and you wouldn't feel the need to hide your third degree burns from me

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
the anything's that sink deep in the left side of your brain
wouldn't force feed you full until you tell me you don't want to eat

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
that closet door you always keep wide open would shut
and you'd pack your mask in a box you don't need

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
your walks wouldn't bring you to the middle of the street
traveling all alone at midnight when you leave

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
whatever tells you i won't see it for long since you can't
would stay quiet like black ashes falling from the sky in light debris

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
you wouldn't still keep your pills in the drawer of your nightstand
tucked underneath your white t shirt so only you can see

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
earth would be bigger and nothing wouldn't scream nothing
yet you can still hear it perfectly

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
life would feel more like life and death
is only mystery because you never quite get there when you dream

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
you wouldn't need to dream as much
as you do but i believe you that it's all to feel closer to me

maybe
if you knew how much i loved you
you'd recognize when i showed it
maybe if i showed it

maybe

freedom of speech until you tear off the Hijab of a Muslim woman
walking down the street
and leave her beaten in the blood from your knuckles
exclaiming how much you hate terrorists

freedom of speech until you pour gasoline all over the floor of
an LGBTQ center and set it to flames
because you say that is not love's way

freedom of speech until you're a police officer who beats a handcuffed man
to death while he is laying on the pavement you took him down on
with five other officers by your side
because you think your safety was more at risk
and his skin color only proves it

freedom of speech until you **** a woman you had already detained
and fake her mugshot to save your department
because "the crime rate is rising" on this side of town

freedom of speech until you light up a church
because you still believe you're superior
and want to show it

freedom of speech until you walk around in a white cloak
pretending to be so pure
yelling that anyone outside of your shade is a social parasite
although your color did not always touch the grass of this nation
until you stole it

freedom of speech until speech becomes hate
and hate becomes crime
and there's killing
and killing
and killing

freedom of "speech"
and this entire world will go blind

you never saw
what i was

i was nothing more than a place
to make yourself comfortable
for a few nights

i didn't have anything
particularly special

i was boring
lifeless
easy
colorless
nothing

i was nothing to you

and i don't think words
could ever tell the pain
you have made me feel

it is just empty
so empty

being your home
i thought i'd at least feel a little less
dead

but dead i am
completely dead

i don't have anything
particularly special

i am boring
lifeless
easy
colorless
nothing

nothing to you

and now nothing to me, too

they all tell me
you’ll regret leaving.
they drill into my head
that one day you’re gonna
come crawling back to me
tears in your eyes
begging me to let you
hold me again.
they say that
you’ll realize what you lost.

every night i sit and think
and i remember
how stubborn you were
when i told you that you
had something so special
within you.
and you would always
respond in that same
stubborn tone.
and you’d say "no i don’t"
and i’d just laugh and ask you
"you just won’t ever believe
me huh?"
then you’d smile after your
very decisive "nope"

i remember how hard i’d try
to do everything i could
just to make you feel different
than the rest of them
ever made you feel
and i did try my hardest for you.

they tell me it’s gonna
kick in soon.
that all of the pain i feel now
is going to match the guilt
and regret you’ll drown in.
that it’s going to hit you
in waves
as the sadness does to me.

but what they fail to understand
and what i’ve learned about you
is that if you find yourself in a
place where you’re suffering
you’ll leave it.

and so they so foolishly believe
you’ll pay for what you did to me
when you and i both know
you’ve already freed yourself.
you were smart enough to
let go of your anchor
before i ever had the chance
to tie the rope around your ankle.
you swam your way back to the shore
while i sunk down below the ripples.

and when i finally let go
you’ll have already gone too far
and when i finally reach the surface
i’ll gasp endlessly for breath
and i’ll look to see you.
and when i finally blink enough times
to get the salt water out from my eyes

i’ll notice you
free
walking profusely on the shore.
and you won’t ever look back
simply because
you’d never need to see
in the direction that you
are not headed.
and you will have left me
in the middle of the ocean
fighting for my life.
but i guess i could never say
i blame you
for making me hold on.

for you were the one
who showed me
how easy it is
to let go.

and later on they’ll ask
how could you ever forgive
him for this
and i’ll put my head down
in shame
and say easy. he taught me
how to swim

how many people
can you ruin
in a lifetime?

you don't understand how much faith i have in you, maybe how much faith i have just in people in general.
it's a whole ******* lot, and all they seem to have done is prove me wrong; that i should not have trusted them that much, that i should not have believed them that much, that i shouldn't have had that much faith.
i shouldn't have faith.

almost all of the time now i can think only about the people who have left me, and not because i'm not over them, but because they aren't bad people. they're just not. so what if they decided they did not want me in their life? that’s their decision to make, not mine. never mine.
i cannot judge anyone for walking out when there is always a door in the first place, isn't that what they're used for anyway?
everyone has the right to leave me whenever they want, and i simply cannot complain.
maybe i can criticize them on the way they do it, how abruptly, or quietly, or suddenly, sneakily, if they lock it on their way out or not, i don't know.
but i can’t blame, condescend towards them just because i may not agree with what they want for themselves. it really doesn't matter who i am, it doesn't matter what i do for anyone. i can give them the world, or i can give them nothing but a night’s worth of affection only because i care to make myself feel pleasurable, either way, they have every reason to get the hell away from me.
then i start to think, well, what about me?
does it really even matter anymore to make my way up in the world and try to give off love just as much as i’m never granted it? well, i don't know the answer to that, either.
i know it isn't my fault. but that's exactly the thing; it's nobody’s fault. no one can be held accountable. no one can be blamed. so sure enough i just ask myself where the hell all my tears fell down to. you know, like, what was the point of crying in the first place?
and it's scary to think, people shape your views on love, even though i always tell my friends “don't let anyone ruin your outlook”, they shape it anyway. maybe they don't ruin it, but they determine how you determine it for yourself. not through control, but through the experiences they now pass onto you. you can't erase a memory. they become a part of your life, i don't care what anybody says. they're still there, always, because they're the one who made you feel differently about a certain color or the way the sky looks or why people **** themselves or why this answer is that answer and how that answer gets you this answer, and so on. they change the way you see some things, and those “some things” somehow change everything else, change you.
people say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, well where does love lay? in the hands of humans who have utterly destroyed just about every single little thing they've touched with their fingers?
what did we create, or, recreate?
we made a monster out of love, a death sentence, a punishment, a curse, a drug, a killer.
what the **** did we do? and why?

there is one person left, one person who can prove me wrong for believing everyone will always continue to prove me wrong. i want them to prove me wrong. show me that not everyone is going to take away my faith.
that fate, maybe, i don't know, exists?
are some things just a word in the dictionary?
i want them to prove to me what everyone keeps on telling me when yet another soul walks another hundred miles away from me, that i “give good energy” so one day i must get it back.
prove to me that, my love, is maybe not just worth something temporary? is that possible?
does anything really last forever?
again, i don't know. i don't know much of anything.
will you just show me?

admiration
seems to be one of our weakest
qualities
not able to see the love in the rays
the sun sets our way
or the whispers that insist the universe
cares about us each
in our own way
in the middle of the night
when the moon watches over us
as we shutter subtle fragile cries in our sleep
that our lips read "why did you do this to me?"

we come from ingrown trees
compacted of broken branches glued
together with moss
and we plant ourselves on the tops of hills
that way when our lovers finally do come
back (because ninety percent of the time
we're dead sure they will)
we can watch the sun set aside the beautiful
home where the sounds of our hearts
seem to beat
gaze into their eyes and tell them we never
could have gone on if they would have held
strong in leaving me
i mean us

so we hold their hands that still have bits of branches
coiled around their knuckles
and tighten our grip fitting in between their fingers
and we admire their eyes
their lips
their structure
them

but when they are not there
when they have picked themselves clean enough
of the sapling remains
and gotten rid of the pieces we so badly hold close
to our chests and made sure to remember
because they were the most rugged
and ridged imperfections of the earth
that way we cannot connect on the same levels as
before because they are now far passed perfect
and no longer intertwined in our bark
and the grooves are smoothed out so the lines have
disappeared with no birds or leaves that fall because
the seasons stopped changing and the wind stopped
whirling and the water stopped glowing and the grass
stopped growing
and everything just stopped

we sit frozen fixed
on the stump that sits stumped
next to us
and pray to angels above and the sun that it'll grow
oh please grow
rain
we tell it
rain
so it will magically reappear even though it's been
cut down
and we yell at the sky for not cooperating
because there isn't one single cloud
and we just stay fixed
on that bump that stands up out of the ground
and we forget that the sun is still there
waiting
wondering
hoping we will just turn our cheek another ninety degrees
and see its pretty fixtures from different angles
and its hands it has to hold
because when it comes to the world

we do not know how to admire any of its causes
we become too blinded in the animosity of who
is there to admire it with
and we stare at the empty space living next to us
but do nothing to soak up the delight-fullness that it is still there to be admired and the truth that
the eyes of our lovers got all of their colors
from those reflected in everything of what surrounds us

i don't mind walking amongst the trees alone as long as you are with me. i have left everyone else behind. because i know you're there for me. from your soft tar paper to your sweet tobacco leaves. i obsess over everything about you. for i grew you in this very forest. and i love the sparks that light up between us. and even though i’ve acquired heart disease. i know it was only for the good cause of giving my all to you. i like breathing you in. when i cough your smoke adds to the clouds and my gasps for breath accompany the silence. so i never feel too alone. i am constantly surrounded by the sound of the trees brushing in the wind that i get anxious to make my own. through day and through night i never have to worry about withdrawal because i know i always have you. but in my addiction i am guilty of being oblivious to every single one of your dangers.

i dropped you. and your intentions spread like wildfire. you burnt down my entire forest. and for the first time i could see all of the toxins within you. the way the heat melted my strength. the snap of the trees mirrored the break in my chest. they fell one by one. their thuds mimicked the thunder in my heart. and every rumble reminded me of your lethal comfort. for once all of the destruction you held behind your back was visible. and i had never seen anything more frightening and ruthless than watching hundreds of saplings that gave me life croak in less than a minute. and as the very last of them fell. eventually so did i. i laid down in the ashes as the sky went from light to dark. and the only fluorescence left was from the remains of small. crackling fires. i wondered why you had been so discreet of your evil desires if i had done the kindness of giving my life to you. and then it hit me that you had always known i wasn't doing a favor. but making a mistake. and through my own wants and dependence. i had disguised your evils myself. and as i breathed my last. i thought about how none would have been destroyed. if i had just been careful enough to hold you with more delicate hands.

i think we have misinterpreted. the term soulmate.
we have substituted it with the belief that we are
set out on earth. to find one person. be with one person.
exist for one person. we have created. a false interpretation
of true love. telling ourselves that each person who has left us.
burnt us. killed us. each person who has hurt us. just must
not be the one. that they are not worth us. they do not deserve us.
we do this to quench our fear that burns inevitably inside us.
that there’s a chance the perfect person may not be out there.
and soulmate is just a term used to describe the lucky.

Over the years I've noticed that I feel differently about life than most people.
I've noticed the way I look at the stars just before midnight when they seem to shine the brightest, with a desire in my heart to know what it's like to be up there.
My entire perception of the world is shaped completely around curiosity, a curiosity to know the completeness of things that exist within a vast emptiness.

Like space; I desire to know what it is like to flow through space, live in space, be a part of space. Maybe like being the moon, living calmly alone in the darkness, lonely and unbothered.
Or perhaps maybe a star, surrounded by nothing. There is a certain beauty in nothing. I find there is a peace in nothing. I desire to know what it is like to live within nothing, to be nothing.

Most people, I'd believe, look up at the sky in an amazement, almost an awe, for what they can see only as a beauty to the eye, and nothing more.
I look up at the sky, however, with a longing in my heart, feeling separated from where I truly belong.

I have began to realize the meaning behind my admiration and utter jealousy of the universe comes from the truth that I feel I am meant to be above the secluding, limiting, unbearableness we call the world. That living within it I feel subject to only a small portion of everything, everything but nothing.

I feel living upon this world minimizes my true worth, my true meaning in the universe. Where life upon nothing, within nothing, is impossible. But a life of nothing, is truly the life for me.

Not only do I see hundreds of stars with just one glance upon the night sky, I see a home, somewhere where I can just be, my home.
A home that has been formed from the comfortableness I find within myself. Each star and each comet, the beauty marks upon my face, my imperfections- they are symbolic of the bright dullness I find in being alone, completely alone.

I have come to know the reason why I am so attached to the vast, empty universe composed of nothing, surrounded by nothing, filled with nothing, and only nothing. The universe is the sole recluse of who I am, what I am.
When I see it, I see myself; a clear mirror exists between the universe and I, along with all of the vast emptiness and nothing, surrounded by nothing, filled with nothing, and only nothing that's been used to create me.
That mirror a wall, with no real barrier, yet preventing me from surpassing the life I live- one yearning to touch my other face, my true face, made entirely of the beauty I find true peace within, the beauty of nothing, and only nothing, the nothing that's been used to create me.

the emptiness in
missing someone
is a wound deeper
within the heart than
the soul could
ever go

Love and depression are such similar existences. Both are something more powerful, too powerful, to fit under a list of just emotions or feelings.
Both are equally dangerous, and both are the most misunderstood.

But love is a little funnier.
Love can bring us together but as much as it may do so, it's better at splitting us apart.

See there are two types of people in this world; those who crave to feel love, but never will, and those who cannot un-feel love, and wish they were among the others because emptiness and loneliness may be just a little better than worthlessness.
But in the middle of these two chaotically different, demon-filled hells... is balance.
It's where only a few people are blessed with someone who loves them just as much as they do.
And these people live totally different lives than those of us in limbo.

I'm among those in that limbo-state. That state where you already feel dead, where the loneliness makes you feel like you're in some unknown dimension scientists won't discover for the next one hundred years.
Some people break free from this place, some remain floating like a weightless piece of plastic in the ocean, going wherever the waves take them, but never seeing anything more than vastness- always being reminded of how lost they are in the middle of nowhere.

And others... drown.
They die twice; once to join into limbo, join into the ocean.
And the second time they fall deep beneath the waves. And below this surface exists the loudest silence, the most brutal currents, the deadliest scavengers- all among those who won't wait until you've died to pick and tear at your bones.

gazing up at the stars he
peered the question;
"what is love?"

I thought for a few seconds,
something that could not
be answered by a thought
for a few seconds.
Clearing my throat to buy
more time, I recalled every
moment, second, minute of
love have ever been felt for
a person by me.

Indeed- I answered, said to
him that love was "the bare
nakedness of accepting and
beholding the flaws of a person."

As I recalled deeper I realized
I had never been part
of a love like that. In fact the
love I had described was
the love I wished I had
been in, but no, never have
I experienced such unique,
loving, love-filled love.

What is love?

In another life I will answer
that question in less than a few
seconds, gaze up at the sky
same as he, immerse in the
uncertainty and inconsistency
of the universe, and admit to
myself that the lie-filled reality
I have been living is nothing
in relation with love, for
I know not what love is.

Sometimes I think-
about the world and if it's
ever wrong about things.

I wonder if sometimes
it splits apart the wrong people
and if it lets those who
continuously harm and are
toxic to each other's existence;
toxic to each other's happiness
stay together.

I wonder if it always expects us
to fix its mistakes.

But if the universe can mess with
love, how are we ever supposed
to find the capability to overrule it?

Nature shows me just how destructive
the world can be with its wind
and its hurricanes, its tornadoes
and its blizzards.
The same way it stretches and squeezes,
shrinks and grows,
compresses and exfoliates,
supplies us with and strips us of the
oxygen we need to breathe, it does so
to the love I feel for you.

It gets back at us for all of the
damage we've done to its beauty.
It slowly picks the leaves off of
our trees of interest the same way
we cut them down to build a home.

But this world is the world's home.
The same way we've stolen it, the world
steals you from me.
The same way we "try our best" to use
alternative energy, it plants you right in
front of me, teasing me the same way
we humans do to make it seem as if
we care about extinction.
It gives me insight to how it feels, being
forced to separate from the rest of its
universe, feeling singled out,
punished that it had to be cursed with us.

See you were my home. The same way
the world could live and grow within
itself I could do with you. The same way
the sun rose with light and the moon
stood by in the dark you did with me.
The same way the world could show
its destruction and warmth I showed my
insecurities and passions with you.

Our love was symbolic of nature. The
strength to power through anything in
its way. And the world decided it wanted
you for itself.

The world noticed your uniqueness and
potential and unshakeable love. The world
noticed your mind and your eyes and your
heart. The world noticed you.

So from now on the stars will paint your
smile in the sky. From now on the sky will
become the shade of blue that's deep in
your eyes, the shade that's a mix of the
ocean.
From now on the world will take care of you,
as you do to it. It will take you to different sights,
to see different sunsets, hike to the tops of
mountains tipped with warm and positive energy.

And the world will be enough for you.
And the same way you'll admire all of its
beauties and comforts and blessings, I
have done to all the different parts of you.

Love,
Why do you leave me when I need you the most?
I have been telling my own ghost
About how empty I've been ever since you left my side
Too many tears I've shed I can no longer cry

Love,
Why do you hurt me when I let you fill my heart?
Inside I've been broken and torn apart
Because of how lonely I've felt within
As all your lies help the darkness creep in

Love,
Why do you let me go when I beg you to stay?
Now that you're gone it seems that half my heart has blown away
The roses you gave me have started to die
Did you enjoy hammering that delicate heart of mine?

Love,
Why do you tell me you love me when I know that you don't?
Why do you still promise to fulfill your promises of not hurting me when I know that you won't?
Why do you use me when you don't need me since you've already won?
Why do you make me depend on you for light like the sun?

Love,
Are you trying to feel powerful because someone made you feel weak?
You stole my heart and now my lungs and I can hardly speak
Did you always want to hurt me, was it always your plan?
Do you miss my footprints in the sand?

Love,
Why do you come by every day and not leave until night?
Are you trying to make up for when you left my life?
Bringing more and more flowers won't make it right
How do you feel now that I am not in sight?

Love,
Why do you cry that you miss me so much?
Why didn't you appreciate me when you had my touch?
Are you empty inside from the lost beat in my heart?
Does the guilt and regret tear you apart?

Love,
Have you let go yet of how I will not come back?
When you heard the news did it give you a heart attack?
Did you want me for me or did you just use me for you?
Did you ever really think that I’d love you, too?

Well it's too late now, Love,
Because I've already moved on
I'll leave it to you to realize what you did was wrong
Just as the miles were between us the ground beneath you does so
How does it feel now that this isn't the first time you've let me go?

you were the sun

and i was the moon,

you turned away

when i looked at you.

when the stars appeared

you had gone,

maybe alone in the darkness

is where i belong.

you left me here in the dark

every single trace of you dispersed

i made the mistake of looking to see all the stars in your eyes

and now i can't stop questioning the universe

trust me with your heart.

i will have did to you
all you have done to me,
and in the end,
“strangers”
will have been forgotten.
our love
will last.
broken and shattered hearts
will crumble beside our empty hands.
hopefulness
will enlighten itself within our souls.
darkness
will not exist.
love stories always written in books
will be named after us.
insecurity and misery
will not form in shadows at night.
worthlessness
promises that
i cannot keep you
happy.
you will never be
miserable.
you will be
loved.
do not ever think you could be
hurt by me.
i will be sure you are
always on my mind,
and with your broken heart
believe i will love you

(now read from bottom to top)

i'm not sure which is worse:
feeling alone or feeling lonely.
or not knowing the difference between the two
when i have been both.

people don't notice me.
and i think it may just be because i
live in a different world.
maybe because i live inside my head.
which may just be my biggest mistake,
it is a living hell
inside of this place.
and i am constantly hearing knocks
and the sounds of people telling me
to move on.
how you don't need me.
how i am not a first choice.
how i am invisible.

and i am.

but i have moved on from that.
now the question is if anyone new
will notice me.
and we can agree you do not need anyone to
complete you.
but let's be honest:
it's a lot easier to let your tears out when
someone is there to let you pour them
into their ocean.

who knew if you listened hard enough
your loneliness would become so loud
too loud
you wouldn't be able to unhear it.

and i use the music to
drown out the sound.
but when i stop listening
i notice i've been keeping it in the whole time.

and now i know what's worst of all.

being so alone
being so lonely
that you no longer recognize your own voice
because many times it's done its
evil manipulation
of
turning you against yourself.
and you have become
your own worst enemy.

and no sounds of war
could compare to those
that go on in my head.

amongst true lovers only
do we find the perfect fitting

only with hand-carved hearts
and woven words into the deepest
layers of skin
can we truly say we are in love

when our palms hugged for the first time
i felt your lifeline

every mark upon the ridges of your fingers,
symbolic of every mountain of life i've been
meaning to climb

your crescents, similar to those i suppose
that are on the moon
bring back the feeling of simplicity that
existed as i was a child, hopping in and out of
street puddles in the rain

the desire to explore

your hands are apart of this very earth
as we all come from stardust

i study your prints
knowing you have picked up the deepest
agendas of my own mind
as you were once one who held my
dying heart

and with those very same hands
you rebuilt my walls
and softened my outer shell

with those very hands
you caressed my heart
and shaped it to rest just upon
your fingertips

...

with those hands
did you rip and tear
the threads i needed to keep together

with those eyes
you watched parts and pieces of me
crumble in avalanches
and become frozen in the cold

you chuckled as i choked on disbelief
that you would let me sink so deep
to drown in darkness

the need to escape

as my hands clench the pebbles from
the bottom of the sea
and question if i must have been
made from the fallen dust of a
dead star

i study my prints
knowing you have engraved your
toxicity into my deepest grooves

as you finally let go

setting our memories free to blow away
with the wind
and my tears drip like melting raindrops

and i am finally one with the earth.

your eyes are like the ocean
crystal clear and blue

my only favorite color

i decided i wanted to paint them
so you could realize how
it feels to look into them
and see the waves and the ripples
and know a part of the earth is
held within you

i spent 72 hours with that canvas
and the brush became my best friend
and blue paint covered my skin

when light reflects off of your eyes
you can see stars

so i painted 13 luminaries in each
for the 26 arrows i felt
stabbed in my back

i painted one tear inside your left eye
to symbolize how i hide mine
every time my heart cracks

because love, when i showed you my painting
you gave me no minute to speak
you said ‘wow, that's amazing’
and told me it reminded you
of her eyes
and how the sight of them
and that smile
made you weak

i gave you the painting as a gift
for you

i just loved your true colors

two weeks later when i
answered your call
you asked me to help you
hang it up
in her bedroom

i even picked out a blue bow
and cringed as i knew this would be
our very last tie
you said it’s easier to show love
through poetry or paintings
because people themselves
are too blind

i sat there and thought
you were right
and being blind is what
tears us apart
but just as i made
the mistake of my feelings
you never realized
it was you

you were my work of art.