you know what I think? I think sleep is for people who aren't up all hours of the endless night spending each second whole heartedly loving someone. I think 2 a.m was invented for poets writing poems upon poems about the curvature of his jawline or how her lips taste like stardust and sunshine because one never seems to be enough and do beauty the justice that true love demands. how could you possibly sleep knowing you're wasting minutes and moments and hours spent being subconsciously elsewhere while her hands are empty and he's out there somewhere whispering to the moon and the stars and Jupiter and whoever else is willing to listen about how beautiful you are when you don't think anyone is looking? I once had an entire conversation with the sun about your laughter and the calluses on your palms and the very next night I found myself screaming your name at the sky demanding answers from a solar system that only offered even more questions. the north star swallowed my memories of my head on your chest and your heart beat in my ear and now all I'm left with are smudged letters and holes in the walls a little too big to fit my fists. I want to kick the door of history clear off it's hinges and choke on splinters of pride and apologies. I want to tell you that I intend to fill every single empty part of your heart with my hands and your hands with my soul. you told me I was beautiful. I always knew you were looking.

a special kind of hell froze over
the day you died
and there are so many ways
to grieve the loss of a loved one
so many different ways to say
"I'm okay,"
so many different faces to paint
and rainbows to wear
yet there i was
bearing the weight of the world
which was one person less heavy
and marrying my fist to a wall
breaking knuckles and nails and
drowning like a sailboat in the midst
of a rainstorm
there's a time in the ocean
measured not by minutes
but by waves
or the lack thereof
where all is calm and still
peaceful
sailors call it slack-tide
and this time only exists between breaths
between collapsing lungs and
breaking hearts
the moments among screams and silence
because we all must eventually stop
and take a breath
so here i am
wearing rainbows with my feet in the sand
of a shore not far from the coast of a beach
named after the peak of your shoulder blades
the arc of your neck
and the curve of your spine
more often than sometimes
i find myself wondering
if slack-tide exists in your ocean of blue
if i go out to sea and breathe in
what's left of you
if i'll wake up
to see you
wearing rainbows, too.