you've properly terrified me
of ever letting you exist outside my imagination
where i can paint you however i like;
however i need to before i fall asleep
and dream of you once more

you've properly terrified me
of my own smile
and made the stretch of lips across my teeth
feel so unnatural and foreign
tight and uncomfortable
i hate smiling, love
so much so that i’d rather weep in front of you
than feign a smile
you’ve shattered my smile

i've forgotten
what soft can be
after i’d gotten so used to the harsh distance between me and your skin
i can’t even remember if it was truly soft
or if that is another figment of my imagination
i just know that you broke me
along with any illusion of love and safety i harboured within

and then
halfway through this poem
you stepped outside my mind
and, realer than ever,
put words in my mouth
so sweet i never thought they could exist within me

you broke any delusion i had of you being perfect
with apologies sewn into your heart
but you weren’t evil either;
you existed in a realm somewhere in between
that my fragile brain could not comprehend,
but one in which my fragile brain could exist
i wasn’t going to break,
because your hands held me up

i was happy enough that my smile made home of my face once more
until, that is,
it started feeling tight and unnatural again;
love, i’m beginning to understand
not even a dozen roses
engraved with ‘i love you’s and the right words in the right order
can rearrange my broken,
rotten heart;
i love you,
but love in this fragmented desert
does not grow that much,
through no fault of your own,
i assure you;
you just chose to damage the wrong girl’s heart.