i remember writing
about these girls,
girls who held
their goodbyes closer
to their lungs than
the breaths that they used to
speak hello,
the girls who had a
five-finger discount on
pain and poetry, who used me
only as a metaphor for
things get better,
who loved with the same
frailty that they held
butterflies with.
you asked me once if i
wanted to be one of those
girls. i never responded,
for what i wanted to say was no,
i didn’t want to be one of those
girls. i wanted to love
those girls
i wanted to love them
with all the
split lines and saddened
words i could write,
with all the happiness
that they could muster
from old bruises and
faded photographs,
from the rustling of their
sheets to the shining of the
moon through their window.
i want to love them completely,
to love solely them,
because they need love the most.