The Lighter Sides of Shadows

The sky is blue-gray two-by-fours
And they’re pounding in my head.
I keep thinking of you in waterfalls
And I’m not sure if I’m drowning
Or taking my first breath.
I don’t know how to write softly,
Last minute calligraphy
On heart-shaped goodbyes, helloes, I’ve missed yous.
I can’t remember the last time I was touched,
Like breakable like wanted
Like submerged gems
Color coated in natural somethings
You can’t stop collecting.
Hesitancy
Desire
Desperation,
But sometimes I close my eyes
And I’m back there
On horizontal planes I didn’t think existed
Where you brush the hair from my face
And whisper ‘beautiful’
Shattering breaths and wishes and conceptions
And I’m trying to remember why I couldn’t love you back
But all I find are pieces of me that rumble sharply.
Deception sounded too much like exception
When thunder was booming around my organs.
I made tornadoes out of spring winds
And thought you would be my destruction.
Except hours turn to centuries when you aren’t heard.
You are starting to make me believe poetry
Has a shade other than dark
And I’ve begun to feel light again in your voice
Despite the pyroclastic clouds
Wedged between my teeth
And china’s walls braided with my ribs.
Maybe hope says ‘good morning’
Even when the sun has sunk.