Hey.
I saw you
cutting yourself in your eyes
and shedding pain
wet drops
that stained your skin
leaving red trails of salt
marking you within
as something else

you had painted your skin
a different shade

I can’t cave
I heard in your head
crashing against the backs of your eyes
making you tear up
making people stare
I wondered
I wish I had wondered aloud

You left.
and did not come back,
found comfort in someone else’s arms
not that you knew mine were here,
hoping, wanting
-until feeling passion so intense
it could be felt as pain-
to brush away your humiliation,
calm your hands from clenching it’s shovel,
to fill the hole you’d dug,
and smooth your knotted brow

the heated knife of frustration,
and hot-blooded fervor
was legible in your eyes

as legible as the tears,
and the pain

I would.
If you had known
If you had asked
I silently whispered, pleading until my hands were cold and white in the December morning
I’m here, I’m here, turn your head, I’ll give you what I can
but I should have said my hopes aloud,
exposed myself as more than the bystander,
exposed myself as someone who wanted to be more
in a life that was more important
than you thought it was