Ruby red converse
Rust coloured jacket
With the collars pulled down to
Expose your collarbones
The freshly painted ink engraving
Is stark against your skin
Once again you’ve proved that
You can commit to art
Yet not to another soul
Looking for the reasoning behind
The ways your eyes turn to amber
Liquid every time you’re scared
You kept those secrets in a box
Labeled in green sharpie with
DO NOT LET THE SUN TELL WHY
Every time I see you,
On occasion at our bus stop
The one where we traded coffees
And shared donuts
I reach up to adjust the
Scarf around my neck
You kissed the spot above
My neck bone with too much
Stardust on your lips
Now in scattered letters
It spells out your name and
I can’t have people knowing
That you were once my rain
On a dessert land
Dry for days
The wet came with rescue
Ladders in the late afternoons
I aligned myself with
Treetops caressing leaves
And far too many thorns
Live with me again
Show me what its like not
To be sunless on the
Floweriest 11 a.m. mornings
My friends started asking
Why there is only one pair
Of shoes by the door
Instead of two
I tell them the speed
One walks at is ever changing
And not to marathon wearing
Stars on your feet

Letters scribbled down on
Paper as the pen engraves its mark
Even when it leaves the paper
The colours remain
The shapes linger
You tore the clouds from
Their places in the sky
While the purples, blues
And pinks bled
Like red lipstick marks on tissue
Stamps on new bought
Postcards that stick where
They are stuck by flying through
Time, countries and air that
Smell like metal and lemons
But the colours couldn’t show
What thunder and dirt
Showed up under the
Doorstep when you
Decided to walk away
And no matter how many daisies
I watered and loved and caressed,
My veins will forever be painted with
Rotting petals
Discoloured leaves
Like old sunsets
And falling telephone wires
Those do not leave
Even when they are left
I will shine the broken glass
And wash the buried fire
To me you’re still home.

You walked through every tornado
So you could say that you made it alive
Through wind and rain, snow and ice
Did you bother acknowledging the
Warmth of the sun in your two melted brown eyes
And that you don’t always need to be
Struggling or fighting or competing
With something bigger
Than yourself to win
It might look like glory
Because it tastes like fresh clouds
And small lights hung in the middle of the night
But you’re tougher than tree bark
Put together stronger than bricks
Your cement must be the opposite of an escape
Only, you’ve trapped yourself hunting for a release

Hair string across your bathroom floor
I never hated the yellow light
Like your other friends
But the tiles were always catching my criticism
From the time I spilled oatmeal granola
In your kitchen while you held the milk in your
Hands, laughing as I stumbled after the mess
(Now I know that Sunday mornings aren’t supposed
To be neither clean neither spotless)
To the Wednesday afternoon we spent holding
Galaxies in our palms by your door while it rained
(Now I know music is not just
For sounds or dry escapes)
But most of all, to the Friday I walked onto your
Tiles and felt vacancy in all but one spot
Where you left behind a map as if to
Say, clean up your mess this time
(Now I know that these lettered days
Are just pathways, not destinations)

I like to sip my iced coffee
Without the lid
It seems to look more accessible
Unlike the strings of stars
That remain in the sky; the ones
I trusted do not shine anymore
A box of Oreos sitting across
The wooden table sits nearly
Vacant and once again I’m reminded
Of you and your
Carefully drawn departure
Trailing you went all the ways
You worried that the plants
In the corner of my apartment floor
Would not get enough water
(I made a pond one day,
Scared to deprive them of your
Love like I was).
And how you only ate peanut butter
With sliced bananas
(The air smells like tangerines now).
All the soap in the world cannot
Erase the paint stains you left
On the bathroom counter next to
Your blue-orange toothbrush
Canvases are just better off
Untouched / Uncarved / Unloved
And always accessible.

Try calling me again
And see what voicemail
Greets you this time
I change it up
Each time you ring
To prove that I’m not stable
Never your rock
Always a moving shoreline
Trying to get away from the sand
That holds it in place
Never a tree
Rather the blowing leaves on it
Rustling lack of comfort
Falling when the air turns grey
Full of carelessness
Empty of passion

Find outlets when you are sad or angry.
- You never did well when you wanted to talk and no one save the craters in the moon would listen.
- I’d have to walk, sneakers thumping on the main road into 3am putting your shoulders back into place.
- The stardust on your nose was almost gone and your smile out of place.
- Who stitched your words shut without threading through the electricity you exert in the carefully thought out letters when they shine volumes on all the little things that make you see solar systems in coral oceans?
- I love any excuse to hold you, reminiscent of the nights I crave the coldest ice-cream, we buy two scoops, and you let it drip down your warm hands after holding the cone too long without licking off the excess that craves you more than mountains wish for valleys even at the highest peaks
- When you’re looking towards the red of the sky and talking of answers that to me taste like blue dreams and fears that make me envision yellow stop lights blocking off speeding trains on the corner of Freedrive and Bluckoren Lane next to the corner store, rope stitches hold my heart in puzzled rows while I figure out how to piece you together
- But I can’t fix people, though 4am can only try.