I Wrote Poems for a Boy Who Didn't Understand

I wrote these words knowing he would never see them

I wrote poems for a boy

that didn’t know words flowed from my veins 

that a mountain of bones 

made up my brain 

neural pathways that could only be described

as broken branches from a tree

that saw too little sunlight

and overdosed on rain. 

I put my soul on paper 

for a boy who didn’t realize that it was cracked

that the sun didn’t shine through my broken parts

and love wasn’t a band-aid that could fix 

the damage that had chipped away 

at my ability to feel.

For longer than I have the ability to remember 

he couldn’t see that these words

meant more to me than living 

and when I wrote about him

it meant that I was even more broken 

from thinking about how

he couldn’t fathom a world in which

I couldn’t understand my own thoughts

until they were ink

drying on a page next to my tears.

I wrote poetry for a boy 

who didn’t understand 

the words that ached to be released

from my bloodstream

and it hurts me that

he probably never will