I Never Knew...

Gallows

Eyes like gallows,

Ready to wrap my neck with rough rope,

A death sentence soon to be carried out,

My fate decided,

My heart converted.

Our love was anaphora,

The repetition of a phrase over and over again.

We could never quite get it right,

But we'd repeat it as often as possible,

Hang ourselves by the rope just to feel the jagged, frayed edges of the string that bound us together,

Reminding us that we were not completely without hope.

Our love was a metaphor,

An idea used to convey something deeper.

It was not quite love so much as inspiration.

Inspiration for a time that we just barely missed,

A life not yet lived.

And like the coils of a python we held for dear life,

For this was all we knew.

We'd chosen the gallows,

And we were very proud to call them our home,

To hang ourselves each day in an attempt to start anew.

But eventually the ropes broke in half,

Then unraveled into long coils stretching miles and miles,

Separating us.

No longer could we pretend inspiration was love.

And so, the tree where our gallows used to hang became a stump,

The grass we used to gaze at as our eyes glazed over turned to dirt,

And the gallows were whisked away by the wind.

But I still visit those gallows,

Remember the eyes I hung myself for,

The trees I thought were like neon lights, beckoning me home.

And I feel glad we had the gallows.