I want to break free of your hold
but then I feel you sedate me.
You watch as my heart stutters and folds,
I feel you overtake me.

I fear they will not know what this means,
they'll keep me under their sockets,
barely worth trespassing into their dreams,
I'll learn to keep you in a locket.

I fear falling quiet;
have the years not taught me?
I fear your bipolar climate;
one day you'll strangle me,
I'll stutter through your riot
and starve you with the waves of the sea.

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

I never realized the stickiness of apathy
The creeping, oozing film it left
One day I found myself
Trapped
Stuck like fly in honey
Without will to struggle
Lackadaisical and lost
Staring at a sun that would surely fry me

It was only stalking predator
That sent me straining against my bonds
Desperate, suddenly, to be anywhere
Anywhere
Anywhere but here
The threat to my serenity
Made my captivity real

He would swallow everything I was
So I fought to care for freedom
Fought to care for
Myself
Bat my tacky wings
Until I whole-body Band-aid ripped myself
Away

He would swallow everything I was
Do not follow me
I commanded
Do not follow me
Do not follow
*I am my own

Take a white woman and cover her in red paint
Take a black woman and do the same
Now you can't tell the color of their skin
You can only judge from what is within

We are taught from a young age
To hate what is different from us
Now it's your choice to be peaceful
It's not the paint that is deceitful

But we are the same kind of people
If you look in my inner reflection
It's not about thick thighs and pigmentations
It's about every heart in all of the nations

Who would you take a slug for
Who do you wish death upon
Don't waste your bad words
On the ears of that's all that they've heard

Speak life into strangers daily
I don't know you or owe you
But I can still call you my friend
And we will fight together until the end

We all bleed red paint
We all die sinners and saints
Don't label me something I ain't
This heart, is not for the faint

So bless my skin
An all that is within
From the tips of my toes to
Every part the good Lord to knows

You judge me if you like
I won't reflect on it
I have cracks in my skin
And all the paint seeps in

And so it fills me up
With all the love and the pain
Of those who bleed out in vain
Because fools speak words that sound insane

Different shades of acceptance
So judgmental in their minds
Because they fear what is different
It's not your fault they on ignorance

So color me blue
And let the sky watch
Because we have bigger problems
Than who's white and who's not

I wake up this morning, it's been thirty days since we last spoke. My heart has aged more than that.

I turn to my right, sighing out slowly, feeling my ligaments creak and my bones moan, put on my glasses, and have to push away the thought of you a hundred times in those few seconds. I get up and wear something you'd hate. I cry in a way you'd hate. I love you in a way you'd hate.

I wonder where you are right now and if you care about where I am.

(In case you're wondering, I'm lost in the sea of you. I'm lost in every memory. I'm lost in laying by the gazebo, I'm lost in counting stars, I'm lost in paying for ice cream, I'm lost in now-burnt-down favorite pizza places. I'm lost in sunglasses. I'm lost in sweatshirts. I'm lost in it all.)

Maybe, we're only pretty in context. Maybe this isn't what love is supposed to be. Maybe we were always all wrong.

But I don't care, I want your homemade haircuts and messed up spine and bony fingers, delicate like bluebird legs, and the way your eyes light up when you see me. I want to be where you are again, feel your arm around my shoulder again, feel your cheek pressed to mine again, feel your laughter shake me like a tiny animal in the jaws of you. I miss your chaos and disaster and starving and boy crying. I can't sleep at night knowing that you're not still wrapped in the letters you wrote me.

I'm trying to get over it, but I'm buried under the weight of it all.