paint me unbroken

a handful of memes,

the page is still

place your insecurities here, i’ll bury them under 3 am heartfelt whispers that set free the butterflies in my stomach and strokes that go something like <i>i wish i could make you see yourself the way i do</i>

friend, do you not remember

theres a boy in London with stars for eyes and a brown suitcase with ‘pray- do not open’ engraved on its side inside lie a handful of dried daisies & letters promising days that will not happen and i still say his name when i look to the heavens there are oceans between us and every day without him coloring it has me drowning inside itself there’s a boy lost outside the Birmingham Palace walking in what a 6 year old version of him daydreamt he whispers tossing the coin in the wishing well‘all i want is to find my way home’ even though that place taught him how homesick felt i read him hastily scribbled pages from my diary that go something like ‘there’s a boy here that smells of burnt coffee and Sunday sunrises and getting lost in reverse but mostly he smells so familiarly of a place i’ve never been before- i think they call it home’ so we lay our souls in this makeshift feeling grow daisies where our hearts have been cracked paint life on barren land and for a few moments separate the chaos from ourselves.

i. i wish you heard how loud the silence swell, how big it beckoned // somewhere somehow i stumbled onto sadness // all big eyed and eerie // with half a heart in his hand and a promise stuck in his throat // and my eyes never opened the same.

look: the petals i tore wishing for you. look, how they’re brittle and black. the holy say nothing good comes out of destruction, i’m hoping you and i are an exception.

a dozen fairy lights lingering in your eyes // the air reeking of distant music and nostalgia // and a curve in my lip only you can bring. this is where love embraces ache // where all shades blend. this is where i fall alone // and together we stand in that place // where i ink your name // under the definition of ‘home’.

i. because if i scratch this skin, the hurt will bleed me dry. it’s been here so long, it’s become part of who i am. maybe it’s been here longer than i have. maybe god dipped his hands in it before he moulded my shape.  ii. because there’s everything unsaid in the way my mother joins her hardened palms, fingers fragile, bruised bones and all. in the way she kneels on the hardwood floor and talks to god. begs my name, before whispering her own. iii. because on the 14th of some month the winds carried all my destructive thoughts and snuck them someplace safe. every day is taking me there, it’s where i’ll resurrect.  iv. because there’s something else hiding beneath that same ground- like havoc, like home. i’ll burn my thoughts, then i’ll start to dig. it’ll kiss me unbroken, i’ll untangle it.  v. because i’m still hoping you are my it.

i dream of the space between your parted lips, ready to swallow my mountains of doubt. your auburn hair dancing in the absence of wind, as if to say “who needs it?” as if to say “you and i are all that counts” i dream of July and the glint in your eyes spilling laughter, my hands catching every last droplet palms open heavenwards, as if to say: “this person is joy and this joy, prayer” i dream of your kisses and how they set my skin aglow your voice soundless as if to say, “i told you we’re ashes of the same star” hands holding my entirety, etching promises of unseen tomorrows on my self-inflicted scars i dream a sunny day and you, picking white roses in a red-bricked garden i wake up and you’re holding thorns, the garden walls look alot like my blood and the sky’s so black as to forget, as to be saying: be careful what you wish for.

you’re angel wings and halos, the shade of the sky just before it starts pouring rain. i’m thunder and a hurricane. you’re both the wish and the shooting star, the entire sky too. you’re the color of healing, the touch of love. the definition of ‘happiness’. you’re mending hearts, i’m breaking my own //you’re restoring faith, i’m flirting with death // oh, you’re everything i need // oh, you’re too good for me.