i learned personification in the third grade

and i've been writing away since

i used to be a star,

only when the catch was in my teeth,

brittle bones brewed shallow ran deep,

swam sleepless to the moon;

i hate the rain and breathe the blue,

loved the shiver,

such a shameless comparison

for a cloudy fall,

and time trained me well

for rubber stamps, safe and raw and open,

like you were the gate and the wind shackled my shape,

hostaging our embrace,

like a puppet string,

our captive song;

or am i just bending my will like there’s a mind behind these words,

like i’ll believe myself eventually,

that the truth will make things worse;

your formless frame, ambiguous and imposing all but what it’s worth to hold a promise,

or a concept,

impossible to observe;

-

a movie star persona in my cherry-flavored optics,

i bent backwards over gravitas and set my spine to rest,

felt the gusts heat my wrists as the blood squeezed away,

a pause in solace, like of confirmation, static life decay;

like tearing up my pages, making ink revert to shards,

uncovering the flattened pavement, coloring my concrete heart,

there grew petals from the paragraphs that swelled my composition,

busses, bells, and unmade dishes spelled the distance from the start,

-

where i used to be a star,

with all the qualities applied,

singing you’s and they’s to barricade

the past personified,

calling comfort from the sky,

trusting i can do no wrong,

when i draw the white and dream the moon,

spin the lightning strikes down like streamers,

and blow asteroids into balloons,

and reach so high that i can touch everything i once knew,

everything i knew myself to be,

-

like sepia and barely bleeding,

blending every color cried,

something segmented to lean on,

sightseeing with falling eyes,

down to where the only guise of paradise could take display,

a type i can erase,

blinking through the scenes until they’re lowercase.

acd