a doctor once told me I had a cracked spine
and it all made sense because
I always seemed to fall in your direction.

but maybe I'm not afraid of heights
our falling from them
just the noise my heart makes when it hits the ground.

I need a new endoskeleton
to keep my heart from getting punctured
or maybe my current one is just tired of the bruises.

you want to know how I got these scars?
I ripped every memory of you out of my heart
and out of my mind and sacrificed them
to the part of me every time you
come into my vision screams "move on".

just when I started to get over you
I saw your face again and realized:
I will never be able to be just friends with you.

when the space between us went from
the gap between my fingers
to the distance from here to the MilkyWay
I told myself:
fire and water don't mix,
but when they love, they love passionately.

but unfortunately,
my local supermarket doesn't sell a band aid
able to fix a heart.
and my mother never taught me how to sew.

but tell me I'm not crazy when you were the one
who taught me to be thankful when my lungs filled with air.
how can it be a crime to come home late
from wondering what it would be like to wake up next to you everyday?

and I had a front row seat to watch
you give her everything I once gave you.
and with every syllable,
I swallow yet another piece of my heart.
but I do not complain.
for what good is art if it is not shared?

loving you was self-destruction.
I treated you as if you were the sun
and I were the flowers; I needed you.
But I guess the sun doesn't need the flowers
as much as the flowers need the sun.

but you were always my biggest muse.

(s.j.b.)