I just have to speak my mind, ok
It's this dysfunctional need I have to be heard
Otherwise I leak out everywhere and it makes a mess and it stains people's hands in these beautiful hues but they're colorblind
so all they can see is gray and black mud spatters
and my heart shatters at the thought that nobody will ever understand me.

-
-
We've made iPhone covers for our hearts
So we can pretend that we're just texting when it feels awkward just connecting,
face-down on the pavement of another human soul.

-
-
-
And perhaps every love story is the same story
Perhaps we've all just conditioned ourselves to tell it differently
In ways that make the most sense to us.

If you can escape me in little thought bubbles
Like I am a bottle of carbonated soda
((And you are the hiss that escapes me when I'm too shaken up to remember
We should have digested our feelings by now))
Then perhaps I should shovel my fist deeper into my mouth
To keep all of these words from dribbling out

I want my poetry to collect dust on the shelves until the pain is covered in layers of felt and can't be felt anymore
Wouldn't that be wonderful
And you-
When I'm gone-
You could take your elbow and polish the covers with your sleeve, wondering why it's hard to breathe when the mushroom clouds explode prematurely into your eyes, making you blind for a moment and unable to peek through the blinds of my ribcage to see if my heart still beats between the pages
Would you want to know if my soul could breathe between all of those layers of letters and lint from your sweaters that clung to me like meat hooks when we parted
Perhaps I write about those things
Perhaps these are premature ponderings, these thoughts of my heart
For I am not one to go unheard
I will write this poetry and it will sit
Fresh and cured and seasoned
Waiting in a meat house for a season
Until either you or I have the sense to eat these words
And come to terms with the fact that we missed our chance to be savored and loved-
Darling, I'm waiting.
For you.

I wish my poetry was more real
That I could be more willing to use my pencil as a scalpel and scrape out the gangrene infection left from the pieces of your soul that sit in my chest like shrapnel
We weren't very good at open heart surgery, were we
I didn't care that you cheated your way through med school the way you cheated on the promises you made between breaths as we read each other's minds with our lips
I would give anything to know if it's my heart that is the puppet in this chaos, or if my body is the one being pulled by the strings you wound around my waist before you told me that we couldn't be together anymore
Who is the major player on this stage, anyway
With clouds as curtains and stars as spotlights when we need them most
We are but actors
Living separate lives
We haven't exchanged lines with each other for nearly 6 months
Well
We did
But that was off-book, backstage
Where nobody but the cockroaches and dust bunnies could clap beneath our feet as we realized-
I still love you

The saddest things in the world are found between the lips that sip from coffee mugs
Trying anything to start their hearts
Up
Again