Anthology of a Still Beating Heart

Don’t mistake my pain for poetry. What is so poetic about bruised knuckles and black coffee? cold bedsides and bloodshot eyes? dried ink and broken pencils? i am not artwork to be gawked at. i am disconnected stanzas and the prose that unsettles you to your bone so you lock it away in the journal you swore never to touch again. You decorated me like a holy empire but no one ever told you that I come from the gallows, And I don’t believe in queens.

My skin only smells like kerosine because i’ve been burning down all the places that you’ve kissed me. The sky is red and i can’t find a single star. i’ve made a ghost of you and it’s my worst mistake yet. i always visit the crime scene because it’s a monument. An obelisk of stone and ice. Nights have been quiet since the walls stopped whispering, but now i can’t sleep. All i think about is the way you wanted yellow roses when all i had were tulips. i’ve spent too many pages trying to capture you. What i didn’t realise was that i should’ve saved some paper to let you go. Minutes feel like seconds while entire days pass in an hour. i forgot what the sun looks like. i should’ve known you’d take it with you.

…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?