You are my tangerine,
Brimming bitter-sour
Across the wretched, dusty room.

And you brought me
An orange touch of sun
Glitter glowing on my skin.

To wake wide in the morning,
Curtain dances with fresh air
Into my smoker's lungs.

Even to my deathbed remains
The scene of you that will
Leave me between the walls

Of longing and regret.
And to my morning sunlight,
I will never become better.

I say to you, my tangerine,
You are my very will to live,
And to die, if I cannot save you.

Your image still sits
under the red traffic lights
On the other side.

And to watch you whilst
Dancing between the painted
Lines of pedestrian lane,

Your scent left me unmoved.
And to your unnoticed tears
That fell beneath the concrete.

To be chosen by your smile
might be the ugliest way to
Say goodbye to this ugly world.

We could both leave this place,
Cure you over the stars
And be at the moon but

You kissed the dust,
and bled the pavements -
And no one came to save us.

I give my greetings to my dearest—
you still shine the brightest
among tulips in my memory.
And to the world well
beneath these walls,
I wish for this day to live.

I still have your name
carved on candles,
lit—in the silence
of your long-gone presence.

And time, as it melts—whole,
dulls the weight of longing.
But I can still hear your laugh
from years ago.
It still stings.

To the greetings left unsaid,
I whisper them to the air.
For my dearest memory,
I wish for your day—
to be the brightest.

I see your bare collar bone.
The chassis of you.
Your shoulders stiff
from lifting too long.
Your ribs—tight—
holding in breath
to call out life.

I'm going to take you home.
It’s okay. No one will see.
We’ll hide it with a necktie,
drape it in my sleeves.
I’ll walk you there
with my ****** ache
and shoes worn thin
from leaving places too fast.

We should hurry.
My wrists are tired.
They shake from the inside.
My marrow is dusted with fear.
Osteoporosis, they said—
but it’s just a word
for how I’ve been crumbling
before anyone noticed.

I wanted to carry you.
But my bones—
they fold under me.
I have enough ache
just holding myself.
Still,
I want to take you home.
I will strip myself bare
beneath the sun if I must,
but I cannot let you
see my bones.

You'll never know
How fast the car goes
Just by tracing the lights.

You can always take
That first short leap—
Like taking your first baby step.

And have that doubt
First cross your mind
When the light comes big.

Like spotlights for your
Dance of life and death
Between a merciless truck.

And when the time is right
Take flight, play tango
On a four-lane highway

Just to have my sleeve
Be grabbed, be dragged
And my heart—left open—on the other side.

Do you hear me when I sleep?
As I hold on to your gentle hand,
While winter’s first dust settles on our heads.

To live in a false dream,
Yet still, I long for the warmth of coffee
between you and our furry friend.

And to die by your side,
such a soft, forgiving way to leave
This earth, so full of quiet ghosts.

I whisper your name beneath my dreaming eyelids,
And my eyes, flickering, seem to glow with the pulse of rem-embering
The day I’ll die a thousand silent needles.

Do you hear me say it, your name, in my dream?
It was always you within the aurora lights,
The one I cling to, between sleep and wake.

Paper sits—no one has touched
a single piece of me,
like some old dusty ruin.

How could I peel the world down to its crust
serve the core like an orange—
and just be another failed metaphor?

The clouds, in fact, sit above me.
They were never fluffy—only cold.
And I knew, to them, they were all ugly.

And to keep on bending the world
into words, chasing
the familiar taste of mediocrity.

I know—they were all ugly.
But they were mine—they were me.
Fold them in my hands

Bury them with me—
my ugly little truths.
I’m happy to die, to live in them.

I caught you holding tight,
A teaspoon waltzing in your cup.
And you smiled like the world -

Hadn’t already taken too much of you.
I could say, "help yourself."
In front of a cake, half-heartedly sliced.

Under the worn wood table,
I won't let you paint a shade of doubt
Between your smile and what you said: “I see.”

To bring my tissue on the way out—
The one that knows what I meant,
The one that tries to keep you.

I'd have to walk on the line
Of "only when I want to."
Or "because you promised me."

You are my world,
But I’m not what the world needs.
And I—I would be just fine.

They said you were too much.
Too loud.
Too soft.
Too strange.
Too broken.

So you went quiet.
Folded in.
Stopped answering to your name.

Your parents didn’t just hurt.
They broke more than bones.
Your friends carved scars.
You stayed in pieces.
The world walked past you.
You stayed still.
Like a glass left on the edge.

But she mattered.
Before anyone looked.
Before they cared.

I watched you shrink.
Corners were safer
Than most people.
I didn’t stop you.
I let you disappear.

Then you came back.
You laughed.
I kept it like a coin.
Your voice—shifting when excited—
I remembered.
No one asked me to.
I just did.

The little things vanish.
But not from me.
You mattered.
Before they said so.

They were wrong.
You weren’t thunder.
You weren’t pain.
You were a person
Wanting to be seen.

Stand.
Even if no one holds you.
Even if the sky looks away.
I will hold you.
Even if I can’t fix it.
Just pretend I can.

You mattered.
You always did.
And I wish I said it.

Beyond the glass where silence hums,
the sun’s sharp fingers graze the cold.

You take your place in warmth’s embrace,
yet trace your grief in brittle lines.

With every stroke, a world unfurls,
lifeline drawn for unsweetness life.

But I, a coward to your gaze,
turn elsewhere lest I drown in you.

For but a breath, the crows took flight,
mistaking sorrow for a feast.

Between your pages, I find my grip,
yet still, you slip through trembling arms.

You conjure echoes of a past,
where paths once met but never stayed.

I pressed your face in paper’s spine,
between the words of hell and home.

To name you love, I’d lose myself,
and call you mine to die alone.

It’s not a good and gentle start
to wake beneath the light,
with tears that never touch your cheek—
they vanish out of sight.

It seemed far easier to hide
than question why you cried,
why even opening your eyes
felt like the world had died.

You made me feel the heaviest of all matter
that space has ever known,
when you said, “I am dying,” and
you said it all alone.

I couldn’t let my own storm swell—
to add more to your pain.
Of all the words I stitched with care,
“Just listen” still remained.

There aren’t enough old trees to hold
the names carved deep in you—
the ones who stole your brightest parts,
and left your skies deep so blue.

I longed to speak the perfect phrase,
not something cold or small—
but softer than, “just jazz will help,”
or silence, most of all.

I couldn’t lift the stars you bear
or smooth the scars they drew.
But I can guard your flickering light
and sit and burn with you.

I won’t lose one more light tonight—
not while you’re in my care.
If there’s a way to make you stay,
just say my name—and I’ll be there.