The frog-spotted leaves fading from the trees picked by sticky, little hands
Remind me of all the seconds that have passed
And inversely, the infinity that lines every moment;
The infinite me’s that have been slaughtered and reborn—
Eyes peeking through the ash, stretching my neck
Out to the world that will warm my fleshy, new skin.

But my body’s made a home of the doldrums,
Clipped feathers and heavy air, breathing strangulation—
How hard it is for me to see you in color;
You were black and white—
A noir film in high contrast, a classic tragedy:
Touched fingertips before wilting into static.
Our great debut, and now we are left,
Our bones growing brittle,
To grasp for loneliness with someone else.

And I could not stand, vacant
As an empty room, so I filled myself with
Wrath like warm exhaust fumes,
Overturning memories like a systemized holocaust
Just to liken you to a shadow puppet.

But the curation of spite lights the crook of your mind that shelters the
Remnants and splinters of separate, past lives you
Shed like a sleeve of skin.
Slivers of frozen time like artifacts at attention,
Preserved and obscured beneath a smudged pane of glass
That grows thicker and filthier—
Here lies validation for all the fruitless pain; blind happiness; lost time.

With dust collecting upon breath,
I find you who was once the blush that quilts the earth in cotton before the settling sun
And remember your comfort: a sweet cherry lozenge
Melting and staining the inner corners of lips;
Burgundy of heavy habit, of restless nights and dry, shut mouths;
Of stale disappointment through knotted fists,
Yet the warmth of a matted childhood blanket,
We had in a glance.

The few quivering embers that lay
In the back of our throats suffocate:
We are ash
And crushed violets of dark circles and the beauty in failure.
But while memories fade into ghosts and people into fog,
You will always be
Two blue diamonds, in a wash of golden light
Yawning through the veil of smoke and seconds,
Withholding your spectrum.