for the tarnished hearts

𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒕 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔

this doesn't relate to poetry whatsoever, but does anyone know any good netflix shows? i'm bored asf

i'm also in desperate need of poetry book recs!!

-----

i heard the rain

slanting at the wind's touch,

falling against my window,

and i found it

not cleansing

but shattering.

i hear rain

and i think of soft bullets,

i think, "destruction."

its essence

soaks into my soul,

smearing the colors

together

until i can't find myself

in the brushstrokes

and the warm shades

of crimson, of umber,

of autumn.

i know i'll be

struggling to interpret

the blurs, the abstracts,

as soon as it leaves,

and the clouds retreat

into the milky blue,

the disrupted air

stained

with petrichor 

and syrupy blossoms.

i'm a rain-warped canvas,

and i am shattered.

the humid air

slowly traps me in,

sharp fragments and all.

i need to relearn

how to breathe.

i no longer

recognized myself

in the self-portraits,

but i couldn't have,

even if the rain

never came

to run through the paints,

obscuring everything i've tried

to bring into focus.

i've changed,

i'm not a still photograph

that can be tucked

into your back pocket, forgotten,

until you remember

-on a lonely afternoon

as your coffee goes cold

like your hands have-

and you reach

for this memory, this idea,

instead of the living being

before you

whose flooded lungs

are swelling

with these ever-changing stories

(that are wild in the way they unspool

when you tug on stray threads

like a child with too much curiosity 

and too little restraint),

whose eyes have sharpened

with no trace of sepia softness,

of faraway dreams and

midsummer laughs,

like you remember.

if the sun

spared a single ray

to light all the harsh angles

of myself,

the truth would be laid out

like a daring, lavish feast

for the parts of me

and the parts of you

i have kept

in the dark.

love,

mari