I didn’t exist until I took a pen.

I didn’t feel until I wrote it down.

My world fell and came true.

On the ground, between the dirt and the mud.

I watch dandelions fight

and clouds laugh.

Once on my feet again,

I searched for words.

They were kind, and they hungered for more.

But the stars in my eyes

wouldn’t reach the gutter where I stood.

I might have sabotaged myself,

or perhaps I just had more hope, more naïveté.

Odes make the shit glow.

Odd, how I never fully felt at home.

Nevertheless, and never more—

If it were true,

me, the master manipulator and swift narrator,

got broken-hearted for the sake of craft,

Shouldn’t it be easier to write it down?

If I don’t, what was the point?

of falling for a lover

who wasn’t that kind?

The pen might have saved me from madness,

dodging more than this one.

If I didn’t love the pen,

Would I take it all down?

Did it hurt, or did it cure?

If nothing else is true,

I would die protecting what saved my life.

And for him?

I wouldn’t cross the road on a green light.

words hurt.

And the more I try to martyr my intended victim,

the more I remember—

he needed to say it,

and then take it back.

I'm back at the pen,

and he is back at badmouthing his life.