I saw the in-between of monday and tuesday
and it frowned at me for trespassing.
I was in the ocean though I did not swim, I caught the tide on my lips
and I waited there for it to one day drag you in again with the pebbles.
except
you never came to visit the sea again, I know because I waited
and at 2pm, in protest and in sadness
I drowned a boy, to prove I was powerful, too.
I put myself in the clouds
but you did not look up
and so I made it rain.
and then I watched as your hair got wet
and suddenly I was very sad
that the only way I could touch you was from so far away
and you did not want me there.
and then I put myself in your garden, and I tried to grow
but I was strange, I was pale, and I was dark and so I turned into nettles
and I hurt you every time we touched.
so I saw the meadows you stayed in when you were a child and I copied them to give you a sense of comfort
a mother’s fore-head kiss
I let my nettles die and I was a daisy nearby and I danced to get your attention, to prove to you
that daisies could grow where nettles did too.
but you did not pick me
I was a tiny flower and my colours were not bright enough
I was not a meadow; I was not a mother; I was only a metaphor
in a book you didn’t want to read.
and so I admired the things you did want:
sugar in your coffee
white bread and sleep. and
the shoulder which carried a flick of your hair.
made me angry like the curve of your spine; I could not own it like I had owned the ocean
and I had owned the sky
and I had owned nature
and it tortured me to know that with everything I had become it was not enough to put my hand on your stomach
and to tell you I love you.
the sky could not talk, I could not move as a daisy, I hurt relentlessly
and one day when I watched your eyelids as you were sleeping
it occurred to me that it was often the case that beauty was not to be touched, or to be owned
and so I left.
and quietly, calmly
without saying a word,
without owning anything
I loved you in silence.
still do.