Fools

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

I mourned each eyelash you lost per blink,

counted every crack on the red pavement of your top lip,

mapped the freckles splashed across your nose

like splatters of paint on canvas.

I lent you my sweater when the night was moist and moonless,

gave you the bigger slice of cheesecake,

watched you take all the pearls in my milktea

all the while coveting the straw.

I didn't tell you anything because words

wouldn't suffice for what I had for you in my soul.

I couldn't say

I love you like an oil painting hung on a museum wall gravitating

the weary bones of a sojourner,

I love you like a teenage poet's first twinbird,

I love you in a way words can't encapsulate and

to use them as cages is an act of betrayal.

Now, I mourn each eyelash you wish a new lover's name upon,

watch him fill every fissure on your top lip,

trace the constellations on your cheeks

like a stargazer sketching his fate on the sky.

I pray that his arms wrapped around yours dismantle the chill in your bones,

that he gives you the bigger slice of cheesecake without asking,

that he says nothing when you hog all the pearls in his milktea

.

When I told you how I felt,

a scalpel against a rib, a gush of air escaping -

Damn, I shouldn't have.

I said I'm happy for you instead of

I'll keep loving you from a distance,

instead of I'm bleeding while he patches you up,

instead of I'm sorry,

instead of Goodbye.