When the Leaves Fall Off

nothing gold can stay

my family had always wanted me to be a doctor or lawyer or engineer something they could be proud of someone they could nail up onto their wall and show to every stranger that walked into the house. but all i ever wanted to do was write. i wanted to write a painting and tell stories through stanzas. but i could never be the poet i always wanted to be. i could never write the way i thought. so obsessively and so tormented. the way my mind created whole universes inside my head.
the way it would write itself into sleepless nights filled with dreams of words and art that would never make it onto paper.
i could never be the poet but you oh you ended up being my poem. and just like a poem you were filled with a thousand different shades of hurt and a million reasons to keep on reading it.
a poem filled with infinite universes. in nights left gazing at the sky leaving us in awe of such a view only to realize I was staring at you.
a poem which had us laying in bed on rainy days with the sound of thunder coming from our hearts and lightning from the feeling of your bare skin on mine.
one in which you called me onto the dance floor "move with me my love" and we did. we swayed like currents and we danced like the waves. in your eyes i could see the whole deep blue ocean i felt myself drowning in with no intention of being saved and every intention to keep dancing on the ocean floor.
but like every poem you came to an end and damn Robert Frost because we were always told gold doesn't rust and the last words of mine were please stay.
you were a poem i'd tell everyone about a poem they'd ask why I didn't publish but that doesn't matter anymore because i can finally say i did my parents proud. i became an engineer and spent every second of it trying to build a heart that didn't break. now strangers are walking in asking where it went wrong while i'm hanging from the ceiling with empty picture frames everywhere.