no tilte 091124

Tell me all the heartbreaks
in the bottle you threw in the ocean’s tears.
Tell me the dreams you buried last September.

Did they wave off you
in mid-sentence,
like putting out a cigarette?
The last spark turned to ash,
the ride killed by a crash,
but did you still try lighting a match
when they threw the coldest stare?
Were your eyes stinging from the chill?

Were you trying to hold the candle against the wind?
Tell me all the storms,
the many last winters that hardened you.

Was that letter about that kid?
her happily-ever-after,
the first times,
the only ones,
or her poems that lost their way
behind the burned portraits
and have never been seen?

Tell me your wounds,
the scars that painted your lies,
the million ways of goodbyes,
the trophies of how you survived.

Tell me about you,
how you bottled up the shades of grey,
because I would do the same,
like how you did
to our younger selves.