stare at nothing in particular,
but they imagine hands that once
embraced their own.

And that nothing in particular
materializes into
everything those eyes want to see -

another moment to hold those hands
and look into eyes that do not grieve at all.

Isn't it wonderful:
the way you become
so enveloped
in a world
that isn't your own?
the way
people romanticize you
sitting on a park bench
trying to escape
from the life
you call yours?
the way your emotions
run wild
reading about adventures
you'll never have?
when you've become
so numb
to the world around you
because you've read
too much fiction
to know the difference
between reality and fantasy?

A smile
A laugh
A heart broken in half

A blade
A gun
A ******* the run

A shovel
A grave
A girl they couldn't save

they cling onto your words
hoping
like an enveloping embrace
like it waters their soul
like it quenches their diction

              and
                            that

the excited noise of all linguistic vibrancy makes up for the silence

in                         between

like no time has passed at all

beware when you fall in love
with an artist
be it a painter, a singer, or poet

for the artist will
paint you
with strokes and hues
in shapes of every kind

sing about you
with heartbreak lyrics
and feelings which rhyme

write about you
with the simplest words
and a secret message she wants to say

beware of the artist,
and her love
one wrong move
and you're an artwork in her display