blue irises bruise my lungs and I’m suffocated by the fact that they have a right to their separateness and have no obligation to exist for me

they were so beautiful that day at the beach and were orchestrated with the sun pouring down onto your cheekbones, illuminating your smile and I just remember feeling so lucky that they shine for me, and only me

it started storming and you held your cotton t-shirt over my head to shield my head from the rain, protecting me from the universe
you looked up at the black sky and I watched you fall in love with the stars and the way they validated your sense of belonging in the universe

the way you held my head in your palms and kissed my damp forehead, blue irises turning black, like the sky, right before you told me goodbye

I look back at that day and think about how strongly I believed that you belonged to me
how the blue effervescence of your eyes, the purple in your veins, the oxygen in your lungs all belonged to
me

how another human being, somehow, was mine to own

but when I felt the pain you left clinging to my soul like a leech, combusting my neuro-pathways, altering my mind like a degenerative psychedelic drug, leaving me battered and worn out

i realized that the only thing I bring into this universe that is mine to keep, that will stay with me until the day I die,
is me
and I don’t know what hurts more