the slow art of breathing bitter

Grey

We used to be best friends when we were young,

Spending hours and hours under the oak tree—

The haphazard flow of words dipped in emerald ink.

Grey would crack a joke, and I'd laugh all along.

We used to hold each other on

our fading mountain murmurs; our glass fingertips

always felt raw on a mere stroke, and how

purely blissful the burning seemed, oh summer!

Nothing could forge poems of our feral youths.

We used to be so close, yet imperfectly untouched.

We used to build castles in the candy air—

A promise made that such spring would never come

except to us; we would dance and sing

with the autumn oranges and falling suns—

'Til it's too late for Mom to call.

We were a fiercely tender whisper,

confined in the violet walls and faded summers.

We were the rouge on a young lover's right cheeks;

The crushed crayoned skies and plastic flowers 

tattooed our wild ecstacies near our collarbones,

'til the rain came and washed the dirt away.

A whispering song that only we could hear.

It might be late to say, but I'm right here,

inside my car. It doesn't smell like Grey anymore—

But of colored ashes and burning cigars.

We were stained unloved from the very beginning,

except for the hope we had kept building—

Like a building of cards in the sand.

We were as smoky as the abandoned apartment rooms—

rewriting false love with silver pencils and glass crayons

Of daffodils and sunflowers.

The ones that always wither away when songs line up our bodies,

And kind strangers wave back: it's never going to happen.

Unfamiliar love stories started lining the hovering shadow.

The unlit streets remain in his spell—oh, Grey, how much we loved

each other, all the nights and days.

Even when the blackbird flew away, we promised

A lavender dream buried in Spring yellows.

Time always had its own pretty thing to erase us, I knew.

And now I don't feel us in my decaying bones;

Time's ticking out of time; it's been a while or so.

Grey, you loved me, and I loved you more.

I still do.

There has always been a silent metaphor, burning

Our fleshy hearts—oh, we never knew.

For we were too young and all maroon in summer love.

Little did our ruby glass hearts know,

We were meant to fade in the swirling dust.

Grey, it's February—your favorite month of black tea and distracted walks.

Remember, we used to stand near our balcony, and imprint

Our rhapsodic hurrah in the twisted sheets;

The dim lights would glow up our lives; it'd be twilight—

No burning crimson or wild rhapsody.

A brilliant haze of daylight—drunken pink and lovely white.

And today, I'm standing with a bunch of 

bleeding daisies and crumbled kisses.

Let's have one last talk and dew-dawn lamented kiss under the Saturday haze

of new long—that could never be something written or crushed.

It's been a while since we have been silent and dark,

waiting for each other to come and explode. We didn't.

Instead, you spilled my colors onto the wall, Grey,

and left. Forever.

We were made of hungry blood and salty tears.

The sun never shone in our blue veins; it was dead.

We were scabbed in warm winter memories.

I know love's a grey blasphemy

we were blistered in — already broken.

The shadows danced across your eyes when you left — how lifeless.

I can feel my heart not racing anymore as it did—

For we weren't star-crossed lovers.

We were the ashes of a monochrome palette

that could only see black and gray.

We dissolved in the scent of margarita and melancholia;

Stale love crushed in bleak silver memories.

We both wished we wouldn't meet again like this;

But I guess I'd rather die poisoned blue without you.

Let's have one last meeting before I wash away our 

burdened, burning memories — stranded in loveless apathy.

And know this, Grey,

yet once again, despite all your bitterness,

I still love you this star-clustered morning.

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A/N: Mind tossing away a quick, kind vote before moving on? Thanks! :)