of all the months,
february leaves a sour taste in my mouth,
like I’m choking on all the love that isn’t in the air,
tasting the blood against my tongue,
of all the people I have put to rest,
for trying to take pieces of me,
just to feel more whole themselves,
jokes on them,
missing pieces from a puzzle,
aren’t really that valuable when you never had a whole set to begin with.
I never believed them when they said we need love to survive,
love is not the light my body thirsts for,
when spring comes around,
i will bloom as long as that stream flows back to my veins,
as long as the sun radiates against my spine,
and that’s the thing,
love is never promised,
I don’t know how long it’ll be here,
or when it’s coming back,
and I refuse to stent my growth in it’s absence,
I’ve spent enough time wilting away waiting for it to come back,
without even realizing I don’t even know what it looks like,
or how it feels to be in it’s presence,
but I imagine it’s a lot like picking the petals off daisies,
praying for answers,
Waiting,
it does not enforce my growth,
If anything it has only taken it away.

as if love is something we should celebrate,
maybe if we stopped devoting a single day to it,
one day to flaunt all the warmth we hold in our hearts,
we wouldn’t feel so cold every other day,
maybe It’d mean more all other three hundred and sixty four days,
maybe we’d be more willing to show it everyday,
If we weren’t all so afraid to fall in love,
If being in it,
didn’t mean at some point we know we’re going to hit the ground,
besides,
what’s one day in a lifetime of goodbyes,
a lifetime of using sidewalk concrete to conceal,
what we all know is irreparably broken at it’s core.
but all twenty eight days,
not just the 14th,
make me feel like I’m at a funeral,
one I have no place being at,
mourning all the love I’ve let slip through the spaces of my palms,
how does one mourn what they never had in the first place,
being in love makes me feel like I’m at a poker table,
surrounded by people who are so willing to play their cards,
poker faces strong,
all their money on the table,
waiting around to lose,
I don’t belong here,
I never had any love I was willing to put on the line anyway,
I fold.

and my love is like the 29th of february,
sure it comes around every now and then,
but what difference does it’s absence make.
february is still february without that one day,
I wonder if february mourns that twenty ninth day,
sees her in a hotel bar every four years,
goes home,
remembers what it’s like to have that piece of himself back,
only to spend the next three years spitting it back out,
because he’s learned how to exist without her,
learnt to live with being incomplete,
learnt to make his heart feel whole without it,
maybe I was never whole to begin with,
but now I feel like I’m always digging for the gold in other people,
because everyone I have ever loved has stolen the wealth I held so recklessly in my ribcage,
I’m hesitant to love,
because my heart is coated with rust
in memory of all the pieces of myself which I have given away,
And I’m scared one of these days it’s beat will just stop,
like an overworked machine,
whose gears have spun themselves into brokenness,
that repairs will never truly fix.
or maybe it already has,
I’ve spent so much time looking for the pieces of myself I have lost in other people,
trying to  replace the missing spaces in the stained glass windows of my soul,
please do not come to pray here,
for the wind is circulating between the slits of my heart’s cracks,
It is frigid,
like the wind circulating in February’s palms
love has done to me what this earth has done to him,
keeps handing me cards which make me feel like I am going to win those pieces of myself back,
only to realize that those pieces aren’t even mine anymore,
they’re gone.
yeah,
I fold.