the art of loving you

sixty six.

i do my best
to find the bright girl
i fell in love with.
yellow mornings holding hands
have faded to
lonely blue nights alone.
my words fail me
and my heart hurts,
so i take the colors i've harvested
and throw them on a canvas,
as if that might show me
where all the sunshine went.

she comes over when
i'm halfway done,
paint splattered up my arms
and my face.
she asks what i am doing,
and i wonder
how she cannot she her face
staring up in blues
from beneath my paintbrush.
(she was so used to
yellows and pinks,
i guess she forgot i lived
on the opposite side
of the spectrum.)

"i'm worried about you,"
she mumbles,
and she doesn't need to admit
she's afraid for me
and my heart.
"why?"
i quip,
and there's so many whys
i don't know where to start.
why is she afraid?
why do my friendships split us?
why doesn't she understand?
why
why
why?

she's silent for a moment,
watching my hand paint
the highlights on her hair.
"how many times
will you let her break your heart?"
and there it is,
the protectiveness
that is almost sweet
(but also stifling)
how she thinks she determines
who i choose to hold,
on the dark nights
when she's left me behind.

"i love you,"
i admit,
"but i care about her too."

her face darkens like i hit her,
and for the longest time
she doesn't speak;
just bites her lip and
breaks my heart,
with the look she throws my way.
"you'd throw me away
for her?"

i recoil at the poison.
"i want you to stay."

but her green eyes are fading
and she turns away,
and it feels like a meteor
has crash landed into my lungs,
leaving me breathless
and gasping
and painful.
teary,
i dip my fingers in the paint
and smear a black line
across her eyes.

the sun sets differently that night.

as if it knows,
in a part of my heart
smeared black and blue
over yellow,
that it will never rise again.