I could tell you were different from the others when the teacher said your name
you blushed so red I thought maybe if I bit into you you'd taste like raspberries.
and maybe it's that I did want to bite into you, even if you only tasted of ashes.
But I could tell that you wouldn't, you weren't like the people in my neighborhood.
They were all hard edges and hands that dig into cotton sweaters to pull them into the pool, and you were the flower that only blooms in the morning. You were the fireflies that scattered when I turned on a light.
Your finger nails were always bitten right to the stub, and there were song lyrics in permanent marker on your forearms.
"You are the smell before rain, you are the blood in my veins"
maybe you realized you were describing how I felt about you, but probably not.
You didn't see any good in yourself.
I guess it must have been hard to, when people had always been plucking your petals.
I wanted to put you in a glass case in the highest tower of my castle.

I had been shaped by my environment into gnarled branches reaching for the sun. I had a soft spot for people that reminded me of clouds.

We were both tattered at the edges and so lonely.
We had been looking for each other all along.