you came, dragging
cardboard shackles in
your wake and fell upon
my floor like the final
messiah.

surrounded by these walls
that I built for you, and
the props that I live by;
a porcelain cat ticking
time on his paws, and
a blue fish swimming laps,

you fold into origami birds
and exhale debris into
the moonlight, sighing
a breath of defeat.

i cannot decipher it.
i remember how you looked
when you were mine,
how you spoke when you
belonged here.

you are strange to me now.
i cannot pinpoint your
watercolor edges nor iron out the
fissures where your smile hides.

i want to take you in my arms
and place you in my bed.
i want to play chopin from memory
for you and carve figures out of wind,
carry you across the threshold
on gilded fingertips;

but you are no longer
mine to form, and
i do not follow.