Covered in blue hair dye,
my ribcage tightened
like a retainer splayed across the roof of my mouth.

For the first time
I thought I knew what it was like to be railroaded.
Flash flooding covered my tracks
as I beat feet to California dreamin’.

You felt like bandits alive in my trust
and I felt the typewriter keys explode.
All I could think was “again?”
There should be no again.

There is a level of despondence
clear in each timeline we create,
staring blankly through shadows
as if there was some greater purpose worth searching for,
the dye is starting to run.

No matter how many times you paint your name
across my heart in drips
I steamroll over it,
reminding myself that
forever is just for now
and who knows what we’ll wake up feeling.

Curled up, waiting for a flash of gilmore to strike
I let the blue stain the tub floor,
matching the “I have something to tell you”
that is always reached at the last moment.

I wonder
if I did this
would you feel like the train tracks I’ve become?

Instead you are a hotbed of peeling skin
picked at over and over like some Freudian theory.

I am thinking of tattooing
every broken thing I have ever known across me,
hoping that they will create something whole,
buttoned together by my split ends ripped turquoise.

How many times will “again” happen?
How long will I be stained blue?

It is filling my lungs
to the point of turning my smoke blue
and I taste nothing but salt on the exhale.
It takes the fun out of being a dragon.

Ferocity only exists in me in theory.
I don’t know if I can bring myself black again.
Keep that.
I don’t want it back,
this is not about me leaving you,
this is about needing to stay.

I can do no right in the eye of a thorn,
dope stained as it may be,
but I still try.

I lied when I said we could share everything.
I’m too selfish for that.
I’m not ready.

My ribcage is fading grey now
and I need to set it on fire,
let it burn red in the face of every fear I have,
burn the blue out of me.

I hate it when you’re gone.
I have been trying to free myself for so long,
because I know
if you do it,
I’ll never forgive myself,
I’ll always be some faint shade of blue.
A color you can’t see,
but I can feel it.
Feel it spread over my sheets and my shirts
and I think I saw it on your hipbone.

Dear Darling,
I cannot fix everything you find wrong with me.
You can’t either.
No matter how fast we run.