Promises
i love for the same reasons i write:
to see lightbulbs as stars rather than
glass shells, to watch commuters walk by
without a sense of passing time, to drink
oil until my heart is slick enough to remove
and put on display.
he said i could be anything i wanted to be.
everyone i know writes in a straight line, while my
writing curves into infinite corners, circling around
its source. he makes me crooked—my
spine, my words, my grief for him.
he has brown eyes that run into shadowed hollows.
i believed him when he said he would protect
me. so far, no stranger has tried to hurt me. he
was the only one who hurt me.
i will always believe in his promises.
if only to watch the sunset a little longer—
if our ending was a sunset, it was bright
too abrupt. the earth wasn’t warm yet
he said i could be anything i wanted to be
no one’s ever said that to me and meant it.