I just wanted someone like you
To like me too.

I walk in the cold
and watch the snow fall

Snowflakes burning my lips,
kissing my skin
landing in my hair
stick to my lashes

I wish I could admire every single one
take the time to see their shape
know them deeply
love them generously
as I want done to me

her words settle like dust
on the edges of mirrors
i already avoid.

she called me names
i’ve spent years
unlearning.

her voice wasn’t loud,
but it carried—
straight to the part of me
that still believes
every insult
ever whispered.

i tell myself she’s wrong,
but i know i’ll carry this
long after she’s forgotten
she ever said it.

I'll continue to use my words to light up the rest of the world.

As it does people's eyes when I speak.

Preach.

Talk.

Because emotions I find stronger than words,

Hold comfort behind the stiffness of the letters.

My words have no movement, my feelings linger on the pages.

But they do not waltz or cheer.

Yet yearn to escape me and the blank lined cage.

We wildly ran so deep within the cherry woods
that none of us knew when we left the world behind.
You worried, but you danced; The wind made branching flutes
play colored tones by whistling through your punctured mind.

Your skin throws fevered sparkles to the moonlit haze
and every bone bends ‘round in twisted crinkling cracks
to match the wicked smile imprinted on my face.
We worry, but we dance so meadows taste our tracks.

I worry now our mortal soles won’t touch the ground
and, as the grin I wear no longer seems my own,
I hear us cackle freely, twirling all around
while on the ground your shadow watches us alone.

Yet where I've seen mine last, it seems I can’t recall.
As heaven’s mourning light turns sky-bound skin to grey,
my fingers fade and lose your weight. I see you fall,
where dawn becomes the dusk that takes your dance away.