My knuckles bruised, they’re violet,
My heart broken, it was once so scarlet.
I waived the white flag just for you to tear it apart,
I knew it was just the start.

Of Bloodshed, Crimson Clover,
Our dream was over,
You said forever.
But then you smashed it up.
Hatred spills over our sacred love.

Our malice intertwined,
Truth drowns deep in glasses of wine.
Maroon red is it love or is it hate,
Or was this eventually our fate.

like a ghost, it pulls your head back,

breaks each peaceful lull it ever had,

like a marionette,

painfully obeying the lines,

without a voice to answer the crimes.

your brain, fairly weathered,

tying stones to your legs,

so that you might feel better,

but there is nothing quite soothing,

like your life turned into letters.

Cooking is worth the mess.  
The spices, the sauces, the sticky spoons.  
The bowls, the pots, the empty plastic wrappers.  
Fragments of me scattered across the floor.  
Dreams hiding in the crevices, fears lingering at the base.  

Maybe I’m worth the mess, too.  
I am the recipe, a dish still in progress,  
A symphony coming together, no matter the excess.
It’s in the mess that flavors are born,  
Sweetness pulled from bitterness.  
Each scrape of the spoon, each flick of the wrist,  
A step closer to something whole.  
Each spill tells a story, every stain leaves a mark.
And like the meal simmered slow,  
From inedible to flavorful, I, too, can glow.  

As I clean the stubborn flour clinging to the shelf,  
I remind myself—the meal is worth the mess.
This beautiful, messy, imperfect process—  
It’s proof that I, too, am worth the mess.

She said it tasted good—
the salt, the cream, the cheese—
her words like a melody
I didn’t know how to hear.
Nothing was wrong?
But that couldn’t be.
My hands, so used to trembling,
Covered in doubt and oil.
I stood there,
awkward in my victory,
trying to accept the compliment
like a rusty vending machine
taking a crinkly dollar.

Insults come by the dozen,
Sharp dimes that cut me clean,
familiar in their weightlessness,
easy to pocket.

But these **** compliments,
they are a currency I can't trust—
complicated notes with symbols and pictures,
written in a language I must decode,
pressing them to the light
for counterfeit marks
before I dare believe their worth.

They stick to me like unearned badges,
heavy, yet soft,
Meant for a self I refuse to see.
Still, I hold onto hers,
tucked awkwardly in my palm,
a note I haven’t yet learned to spend,
but one I want, desperately, to believe.

I wrote a thesis on what killed you.
I found the disease.
I took its name and studied it.
I broke it down piece by piece.
I spent my college on it, and then my residency.
I learnt words like
critical congenital heart defect and cardiomyopathy.
I wrote my thesis on what killed you.

I did not know what it was when mom told me.
I did not know it when you slept in blue drapes.
I did not know it when you missed my rehearsal.
I did not know it when I saw blood in your smile.
I did not know it when it took you.

But now I know it,
know it enough to write a thesis.
I know all its crooks and crannies,
all the histories and complications.
The early signs and the medications.
It took a while, but I know it all now.
So I wrote my thesis on what killed you.

I labelled all the tiniest arteries,
I wrote of all the chemical compounds,
the mutations of the genes,
the factors that influence it.
I even wrote about the treatments.
I analysed the plethora of cases,
“At least 200,000 people every year are reported to die….”
You were one of them.
“Smoking and drinking were the most commonly found factors among…”
You weren’t one of them.

I wrote about what killed you,
I didn’t write about the beeping sounds
I didn’t write about the knots in my stomach
I didn’t write about crying at my rehearsal
I didn’t write about all the cords and tubes that didn’t save you.
I didn’t write about the flowers you could even lift your head to see.
All I could write was your first name on the cover.

I didn’t write a thesis on what killed me.
I wrote a thesis on what killed you.