Halcyon

love has leftovers

look at what i am,
the unseen witness, the unchosen bloom,
the second flame that no one ever alights,
until the first one snuffs out.

look at me
a hand-me-down moonlight,
an apple already bitten,
a portrait painted in spare gold.

a rose grown in the shadow of a taller stem
still bleeds the same red,
but you call me the garden after harvest
how outlandishly kind of you to claim that.

“you can be everything
the other never got to be,” they roar.
yet how can i sing
when you silence my harp string?

the shadow loves its light,
despite all the brutal fights.
“she’s a cinderella,” you all claim readily
but who am i before i find the prince?

the déjà vu of a dream
alights everyone’s eyes.
is it my fault i was just the same,
despite selling my soul to be different?

i could have been narcissus,
the arrogant one, the beautiful one,
at least someone would have wanted me,
and i would have fallen in love with my own company.

but oh no,
look i ended up being echo,
a shameful people-pleaser despite the snarls,
just for a split second of love.

my heart, a room
no one ever knocked on,
because it was 'already filled with all love.'
yeah, no, scraps aren’t love.

love reaches my room like
sunlight filtered through stained glass
beautiful, fractured, never whole.
'liar, ungrateful idiot,
this is more than what you deserve.'

yeah. right. sure.

the sea never asks
who was first to touch the shore.
second fiddle, silver medal
the younger daughter learns
far too early in life
the inheritance of invisibility
that love, too, has leftovers.

*****