toxic

from

you used to absolutely hate my poetry.

"it's just a bunch of pathetic whiny shit," you'd say, rolling your eyes as you'd run your hand through your hair nonchalantly. "no damn value in words that are just painted in shades of over-exaggerated emotions. it's all fake aesthetics, that's it. what's the damn use?"

and i'd sigh in response, put my pencil down, and decide that i'd write later at night after you fell asleep. i'd try to explain to you that poetry was the rawest form of art, that poetry was the most intimate and personal form of expressing one's soul, that poetry was slicing apart one's heart and bleeding out all the emotions onto paper, but you'd just laugh at every explanation i offered. you refused to see the beauty in syllables of pain and joy, and you refused to see the beauty in the way the words danced on the white paper in their own crooked, broken way.

"if you want to see something beautiful," you'd tell me. "look in the goddamn mirror. if you want to hear something beautiful, listen to your voice when you speak. if you want your heart to be moved by something powerful and breathtaking, then look at my love for you. why the hell do you need poetry when you have me?"

"because this poetry is the only way i can ever completely express how i feel for you," i'd say. "these lines created by the lead of my #2 pencil are more able to depict the colors i see and the world i experience when you're by my side. words that i utter to you will never be enough, but these metaphors, these images, these connotations, these stories that i write, they are all for you. my poetry expresses my love far better than i myself ever will."

"fuck that," you'd mutter in the most non-poetic, vulgar way possible. your words were always so harsh but there was something so moving about the look in your eyes when you gazed at me. i think it was that very look that was the reason why i never found myself at a shortage of words for the poems i wrote. "you want to show me you love me?" you'd ask. "then just kiss me."

i'd smile, crumple up the paper i was writing my poem on, and throw the paper into the trash can. then i'd go up to you, thinking that you were the loveliest contradiction in the world, for you hated poems but you were the most beautiful poem i knew. i'd never say those words aloud, and instead did what you told me to, and just kissed you.