for the tarnished hearts

𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒇 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕

your dark hair is splayed across

the flat hotel pillows

and tangled with mine like a promise

that would melt with the sunrise.

your shampoo plants lavender fields in my lungs

and i can feel the corner of your textbook digging into my arm

(every fiber of your being is too close,

the energy surging around us is honeycombs and decadence and the air too thick)

your breathing slows to match mine

(you always wait for me)

an arm brushes against my bare stomach

when you stretch and it stays there like hot coals

(you say you're just cold

and i let you lie)

if someone had peered in,

they would've thought us lovers.

i know better than to ask what we are,

what is like fire between us, bold and undeniable,

yet you deny it all the same,

the flames casting shadows across your turned cheek.

i refrain from calling you out as a coward,

because i was you once,

and being brave for the wrong person

is like leaving all the doors unlocked,

windows thrown open,

and coming home to find the place bare and ransacked.

the ceiling stares down at me

like it's seen this pain before,

witnessed a million half-baked love stories

in this room alone,

watched how one lays awake and haunted while the other dances in distant dreams.

when you're with me like this

(half mine, half not, completely you

with one foot out the door, one in my heart's hidden entrance)

loneliness strides in through the side door,

sits me down at a barren wooden table,

and cups my face in its pale hands.

my tears fall at the gentle invitation

and when you arrive at last, five minutes late,

i take the heavy teapot with trembling hands

and pour you a cup.

you look down at the storms swirling in the porcelain and ask me what's wrong.

i cannot tell you the truth of my wanting

but just take a sip, darling,

know what is awaking this bitterness in me,

calm the storm even though you are not a god

(i have enough belief in you for you to be one

though i know how it is wrong, how it is unfair)

you rise to leave,

and i catch a glimpse

of the hurricanes in your irises,

shrieking storms that would engulf my own.

i let us part like it is death

separating us

and not our own hands.