I speak to you in riddles
A mismatch of half formed inflections and watered down complimentary words
I constantly tailor my speech to try and fix the places you need patched
Attempting stitches to fix the pools of pain lingering in the spaces between the freckles spanning your back,
My fingers try to touch them away but my hands cant block the bruising spread beneath the plane of your skin.

You’ve become one of those heartbeats I have to keep my eye on for fear it will scatter down the screen and never return,
Your clothes are brightly colored, meant to weather the wind, but on your thin frame they trap you like wetted wool
Making it impossible for you to leave the form you possessed in the past.


I try different types of talking these days
Leaving maps for you to find the thinly veiled meaning behind the paper kisses
And the gold-leafed print floating inside the swirls of my lips
The pads of my fingers try to score your jaw with reminders
That the only thing hollow is the space between your neck and your chest
And the words I whisper into your void is heavy with inflected subtext.

I want to place your quilting back around your heart,
Make your veins more insular to keep the warmth inside that instead trickles out through your hands and feet that never feel the sun,
Your body temperature is constant and chills my intonations,
I can’t give what you won’t take and every day its 20 degrees.

I hope that in your desperation to forget the words you will better remember their meanings.