The ties between me and you

are written through letters. from: me to: you

I wonder if I keep you up at night; if the words my mouth refuses to speak are words that keep you awake until the light. Writing poetry on paper, heartbreak on skin, words so horrid, in their own papers, livid; living in sin, and men like you have come and gone, and I’ve been here writing alone, writing of a love unknown to me and to you.

I wonder if I scared you off the moment you saw scars on my skin, brazen and bleak, filled with sin. Did it worry you that I would drag you under too, that you would stop seeing the world in shades of blue, too stuck in your own masculinity to see something anew? You left because I saw it in more vivid pictures than you, was not wrapped in an idea or maybe two.

So here’s the thing, this is what I ask you: when you move on to another one, blonder than me and a whole lot less fun, I beg of you to look past her shiny makeup and press-on nails, because if we’re being honest, she’s probably living in hell, and she writes of you too, in a notebook that’s blue, and she cries at night and begs to be able to tell you.

And I understand, in the end, you are just a man who was not taught to know any better. I just pray that when you hold hands and kiss, you understand, you cannot be just; you need to be a man.