you were so beautiful
that you were ugly,
like mercury, you
ominous shape shifter.
i couldn't pinpoint it.

you told me you loved me
but love was just a fallacy;
a promise that couldn't be kept,
an expectation that couldn't be met.

dead stars and bleeding hearts,
landmines and orchestra song,
sun like knives, and
deafening silence;
all of it had never meant
less to me.

perhaps its only when
you'd rather wake up
with a bullet between your teeth
that you really learn
how to live,

how to love
something with
a pulse.