I.
Whenever someone says "Zoro", I think of you.
Your holy smile, every tooth sings golden
like it's been washed with gospel-water.
Your arrow-lean body, that shoots
as wide as your smile does.
I think of your presence.
How it's all shadow-kissed and marveled
like the dust of a gypsy.
I think of your personality.
How at midnight it clicks from fish wire tight to limber lax.
No one knows it as well as I do.
II.
It is at midnight when I begin to shed.
Me, skinning off my thick gauze
my stories grating into hands .
I want you to see the Quasimodo in me,
how hunch-backed I am,
how your palms will peel until they're red
if you keep trying to string me into a human.
III.
I have deemed you my Esmeralda.
The one who sees what even I cannot see in me.
The one who believes that there is no monster.
Show me what you see in your hand of gypsy magic
trick me into believing your too good to be true words.
You have been there, every time I messed up,
every time I cried, every time I've been too frighten
to go to sleep, and too scared to leave my bed.
You are the only reason why I haven't been sucked sound.
I wish I could have the white-lighter heart you do.
IV.
I do not know what good deed I've done
to be blessed with your best friendship.
But, there is a scream in my bones
it tell me to give you something back
that is as magical as you are.
Maybe a phone charm,
it's as pure as understanding someone.
it's something that will always remind
you of what you saw in me.
V.
I know now that this is what friends are for.
They shoulder you when your knees
are too busted and done.
They see the pure in you until
you start seeing it yourself.
They are the lift in all of our smiles.
The ones who do not care how bloody
their chests becomes from trying to hug you.