(read forward, then backward, line by line)

I ran.
Not knowing what else to do
There was so much blood on my hands
It was mine
The kitchen knife
Caught in my chest
Guilt
Consumed by
Fear
I was heightened by
Adrenaline
But running on
Wasn’t enough
While trying to stay calm,
Losing control
It was me that would end up
Dead. Because
He was
In front of me
The whole time
It was too late
Trapped
I found myself
Locked in chains
My fate was
Death.

she was a heron,flying
under pale,
)
blackened fields of reeds

she was a mallard,floating
under pale,
)
overcast fields of green.

“sway, sunlight,”she pined,
“stay”.

sure*, i wanted to be yours,
but, really, more than anything,
i wanted to be mine.

(Am I insane to radiate with emotional dreck so much I can hear the snap of your neck)
I could point
To the captive screams drowned in
***&cokes
Festooned with “passion”
Lived out in empty stairwells
the front seat
hours
inebriated
please
let me leave. even without my year 15.

you will never be forgotten.
ever.
your name twisted into metaphors and colors and distractions will forever
be painted across pages and pages of her favorite brand of notebook,
no matter how many she burns
there will always be one she forgot,
and she will only find it once she had almost forgotten you.
she will find the one Papyrus notebook
and all of your metaphors and colors and disractions will come flooding back,
just like how the ocean in your eyes
flooded her heart all those years ago.

shaking through the warm underground,
rising to the impassive dusk:
i pointed out the stars but
we were blinded by the light—

you still stared.