Part 3/6 of "From Emerald to Hesa", a collection of poems and artwork paired together, started about 1.5 years or so ago. Figured now was as good a time as any to wrap them up! So, the poem for this piece:

I tried to take your hand

To pull you in through the telescope,

And the weight of the distance collapsed on me 

The second you said “he”

Did you do it because you think it was too soon for faith?

I see the shine,

but my gaze is hypersensitive anyway

Did you do it because the FOMO of 30 sulks there for you?

The reaction,

I bet it was as chemical as they come

what beautiful irony

that the mouth of the valley,

a chapel in European rain,

shrieked that forgiveness is failure

days before you showed that blind loyalty is deceit 

This is that damned tempest’s greed

Failing a decade’s merit,

Then the last calling of comfort’s code

Came the next day, and I wouldn’t know

Not to mention the peppering of fury and sparks

Why were you so surprised 

I was going to hold you to your word?

The lens curves, it distorts

But I never expected this

I thought you were going to help me

peel all of the layers of fear from the courage 

Can you tell me that a thousand days

Were not enough to know I don't mean to hurt you?

I should've known from the start

you would never make me better

I called you friend,

Then we called each other lover

When I asked for something more,

You went and found yourself another 

There's some sadistic confirmation,

Some agonizing validation

In knowing all my fears have come true

I should’ve always known you'd leave

For someone who was like you

With a culture entwined with your own 

this is the art of collapse,

to confront everything our history led to

at least it's better than rotting in the gaps between

the disasters you hand to me on a silver platter

Thought I’d see you soon,

But let's keep that perpetually in between the two of us

you come back in waves,

and I can't go out with the tide the way I should have from the start

I called you friend,

Then we called each other lover

When I asked for something more,

You went and found yourself another

I keep re-reading the words,

as if they'll change this time around

then I wouldn't have to fantasize about having a hide of gray,

and my charcoal would rub off on your fingertips,

yours to keep and construct

It's such a simple thread you tug me by,

thin as a spider's web, reluctantly vengeful as barbed wire

This hope is a blackened concoction,

Bubbling with desperation,

but I've already realized

You are not worth

breaking my heart for twice

What did you think would happen

when you woke a sleeping dog?

It was thrashing for its vulgar dreams

Lovers meeting in Chinatown

Finding split reptiles, unease in the digital age

How lovely it was for our mutual friend,

With his own southern scratches and a blue host

To try to hold the frayed rope steady,

And prevent the split

the witch I cast in molten ore years ago

took on the new shape of a guiding spirit

we have been stripped right down to our bones,

bones, and what is left?

the merciful huntress,

equipped with tooth and claw to eviscerate

you hold them back,

with tail hung low and ears pinned

in spite of all these guttural sounds and vulgarities I spit,

your sweetness isn't forgotten

But you make it too hard to vilify you