There is a common denominator

between bleeding and missing you

between the ooey and the gooey

tear of the flesh

and the warning signs that go off

inside my head

whenever I’m thinking about you

between the red drops of blood

that fall from

the open wounds

and the unhealthy need

to speak you into existence

is it that I think

if I speak of you

you can never really leave me

or that I just take pleasure

in painting pictures of my own blood?

pictures that still to this day

resemble you.

Open wounds -{renata ferretti}

these games-

suspended on strings

of bitter leaves and spun sugar-

are ones of words

and actions

and assumed thoughts,

dancing along the line

that blurs

between expectations

and reality-

the pawns tumble

one by one

into their graves

of black and white,

waiting for purpose,

longing to stray from

the rules

printed neatly

on colored paper,

shifting and changing

and wanting

to finally feel

alive

the words you said to me

have driven me on.

yet every accomplishment is met

with your gaze,

and that phrase i've grown to hate.

"i tried, but you were the one who failed."

what are you trying to do?

what do i have to do to succeed?

what do i have to do to gain your respect,

since you've always had mine?

you say you tried,

yet i'm the one always trying.

you say i failed,

yet you're the one always failing me.

what should i do?

should i run away from you

and seize my success?

is that wrong?

should i keep on trying to save you,

listening to those words.

"i tried, but you were the one who failed."

what have you tried?

you always try insults,

slander carried around in the pocket of your jeans

but you've never tried kindness

yet i have tried everything

to get you to stay.

to get you to see me as

an equal.

don't tell me you tried,

don't tell me i failed,

and the next time i hear that phrase,

i'll look you in the eyes

and say

"i tried, but you were the one who failed."

***

beyond sight

never entering

beyond the

curtains of lashes

hidden

under piles

of shiny rocks

and scultped stones

never seen

never will be

***

listen for music

a discordant melody

that refuses to arrive

and scatter the

daffodil petals

you dipped your

toes in the

frigid water

and drowned

in the

silence

***

reach your hands out

try to grasp

what rests among

the comets and stars

again and again

your palms are

empty

while the

nothingness

drifts away

like dust

from an abandoned

corner

like thoughts

that remained

endlessly

muted

***

“Hey.”

He turned around, hands rubbing over the front of his jeans. A small, but hugely relieved smile spread over his face at her arrival.

“Hi.”

She smiled back, biting her lip. After a moment, she leaned her head down and rocked back and forth on her heels. “You asked me here?” It sounded like a question, and he sighed.

“Yeah. I did.” He reached into his pocket to grasp a silver box in his hand. It was square, no bigger than the size of his palm, and decorated with a small black bow. Glancing down at it, he fingered the ribbon of the bow; lifting his head, he held it out to her with a bated breath.

She went to take it, but, brushing against his skin, flinched. His shoulders fell, yet he kept in the heavy sigh and sea of anguish. Stepping closer, she touched it with her thumb and middle finger, lifting it slightly from his hand.

“What is it, Vincent?”

He tried and failed to meet her gaze, but she was focused more on the box in his hand than what he was showing her with his eyes. “Open it and see,” he whispered. Please, Roni, please.

She stepped back with a grim frown. “I won’t fall for your dreamy tricks again, Vincent.” Rolling her eyes, she turned to the side and toed the ground with a scuffed shoe, looking down at the ground. “Not anymore.”

His fingers closed around the box, gentle but frustrated.

“I’m not making tricks, anymore, Veronica. What I’m trying to do is apologize and ask for your forgiveness because... Because--”

“Because why, Merriwether?” she cut in. “Because you decide that the girl you turned away from me for isn’t as great as you thought she was? Why should you be trying to apologize and why should you be trying to ask for forgiveness with what's probably some weird jewelery when all I wanted to know was that I wasn’t just someone to be thrown away, not like everyone else in the school thinks of me?” Her voice was cracking, shaking, and she was shaking a finger at him. She was angry and she had reason to be, certainly, - he had made a mistake - but she was wrong.

“First of all, not everyone thinks of you that way, Veronica - you’re wrong. I may be able to count the amount of true and actual friends you have on all of my ten fingers, but they are good, honest, and true friends. Who care about you! Who love you! I understand that quite a few people hated you and still do, but you have actual friends, now, and we aren’t going to leave. Jesse and Andrew and Marla aren’t going to leave. Samantha and Haylee and Quentin aren’t going to leave.”

He stepped closer to her, hands hovering just over her shaking shoulders. “And I won’t leave, Roni, not unless you tell me to. They love you.” He paused, meeting her watering blue eyes. ”I love you, Veronica. It’s not going to change, not even because I made a mistake that I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry - I really, really am.”

“Okay.”

Confused, his brows pulled together. “Okay?”

She sighed, closing her eyes for a long moment before opening them again to stare at him with a trembling lip. “You say that I... That you won’t leave, not unless I tell you to, yes?”

He hesitated, shifting. If he was right, he knew what would happen next.

“Yes,” he said.

Veronica moved away from him, putting distance between the two. “Then I’m asking you to leave me be, Vincent Merriwether.”

He flinched. A myriad of emotions must have played over his face in those moments, he felt. “I...,” he whispered. Swallowing, he chose his next words carefully, from their favorite movie. “As you wish, then.” The anguish and tearing sadness made his voice low and even, yet a breathless, choking sob escaped his lips as Veronica turned from him. He watched through a wave of tears as she walked from him briskly; her form distorted through the salty sorrow.

Sniffling, he fell to a crouch, and then to his knees, sagging to a position in which his elbows scraped along the ground through his undershirt sleeves, his untrimmed black hair brushing against the ground. His eyes shut tightly against the flow of tears and his body shook with soundless sobs.

the gloves are stark white

and rimmed with lace

hiding fingers of glass

underneath

they're beautiful, sure

that's what they used

to say as they sparkled

in the watery morning sunlight

but they've been broken,

smashed, one time too many

so their shine

has been imprisoned,

covered in folds of fabric

and the shelter hurts as much

as the bleeding would