even beaten down and with broken wings I still bleed,
she still bleeds, my soul--
we have been at odds, and though I imagine us
as swordfighters on sunstricken bluffs in the countryside
she has never laid a hand on me,
only whispered half-recalled memories through tears,
of the hyacinths in chicago in april sprouting like fireworks overnight,
and how I had begged nature to turn my veins to roots so I could
feel it,

of late nights watching the high hat lights twinkle in the tiny apartment windows across the street, and how I had cried imagining the intersection of our lives that are each entire worlds on their own, colliding and orbiting like stars,

of fireflies in august in grade school, of hammocking in my yellow converse by the lake to people-watch, of concave train windows and sticky red seats, of my limerence-born tears darkening the tissue-paper-blue bathroom tile at home in connecticut, of wind of music of snow of rain, my God I have been

a prisoner

I have been snuffing out candles for years, sprinting around
cathedrals with blackened fingertips only for the flames to light
again

and I have grown tired of running

even if there is no love for me in this lifetime,
I can no longer stand the sight of her bloodied and curled up
against the walls of my mind,
with covered mouth and hands bound behind her back,
despite everything still seeping poetry