I can’t stand that I can’t understand
Why my heart heaved its contents into your content hands,
Tearstains dripping through my fingers as we [danced].
I remember the days I’d [collapse] in crowded streets,
Because my heart would [skip] too many beats.
Then you’d [spin me], kiss my cheeks and whisper
Something sweet about my [feet’s] defeat.
But I knew then that I couldn’t [keep rhythm],
So I must’ve suffered from heart failure.

And once you left in October, and my soul was sober
Not drunk on my tears,
I would wonder what could’ve persuaded you to stay,
But once my heart attempted a [pirouette]
I no longer questioned my place.
.. I don’t know if you watched after that,
But I’m sure you saw the {snowprints} I’d leave in your yard,
My only way of telling you that I hated being my own {saving grace},
Because a {fallen angel} drops too hard.

But icicles hung from your eyelids that winter,
And splintered your vision.
Looking back, I believe you cried as much as I did,
And the tears froze across your eyes.
Because you never looked me in the eye as our minds ran to pieces
As we raced to find peace with ourselves.

You spun me for a loop,
My skull kissing paintball splattered remains of my left and right brain
As they bled all over themselves,
Knocking my sanity off of the shelves
In an attempt to explain whether love is history,
Or chemistry,
And I didn’t want to ponder the prospects
So paper was my band-aid fix all.
I wrapped my mind around it,
Concealed my soul beneath my words,
Until I was my own mummified form,
Too afraid to rip them off.
Because what if nothing had healed at all?
I rotted beneath my façade.
My smiley face band-aids the only hands of happiness that hugged me for
Months,
And I
Sunk
Into depression,
Not unlike this current recession,
Not knowing where my silver lining would be;
Wondering if it would come only when withered lines worked their way across my cheeks,
A gray hairline visible in the sun,
As proof my time had come,
To be happy.

But something better came sooner with the rains of May,
And a new boy painted smiles back onto my face.
Removing the bandages that had bruised my body,
And punctured the skin of my poetry.
So I was free to bleed again,
With fresh pieces to breathe in.

Was it happiness, or freedom that flushed my cheeks?
Or was it the uncomfortable spider that would weave my stomach in knots
As another part of me was lost
To the boy who painted my peace
For a price?

I didn’t mean to hand so much to him, love,
But a measure of pleasure came with a cost,
And at some point my beliefs were tossed to scatter in the wind,
And the spider of guilt in my stomach sunk its teeth right in,
Sadness seeping through my veins,
The venom of regret.

Because you were the only one who ever held all of me and none of me at the same time,
Who never asked for what I claimed to be mine.
All of me was yours,
Even the things you never asked for
Were stamped with your name for a future date.
But mail gets intercepted sometimes,
And my contents were spread
Before someone I hardly knew
And I-
Missed-
You…

Because you never asked for too much to touch or too much of my love
I loved you the only way I was able to.
And now…
I’m just a tainted tin can on the side of the street.
And I know you don’t have use for me,
But I’ll do my best to undo the dents of my past.
All I know is that yesterday you told me you hate it when I don’t say what’s on my mind.
But my tongue was a sponge that soaked up the ways that I’ve wanted to say
That I’m sorry.

And I’ve skipped my own beats for a year and a half,
Letting my turn to tell you I yearn for you pass
Right over
In an endless drum roll.
But-
I feel a –rhythmic- rattle-
In my –beaten-aluminum-body
As your footsteps
[Stop].
Please.
Don’t let me suffer for my heart failure.