Lemon Hearts

I have never believed in god, but I know I missed you before I even met you.

It is clear that you've never seen yourself dazzling under the sun in fragments of colors like a broken kaleidoscope.

You draw hearts around my scars in glitter pens as I break into a million little pieces from the tenderness.

You must have swallowed the moon and drunk its light - it shines through your fingertips and stars sparkle in your eyes. (I count them, along with the ones that died in mine.)

I fold my heart like a crumpled love letter that just won't burn.

I hide it under the loose floorboards of my childhood home and pray that it won't start beating and give me away. But I had painted it so yellow, it glows and shines through every growing darkness I try to hide it in, like I'm trying to cover up a secret - a fragile truth in which I no longer fully belong to myself.

I like to believe that cities would have crumbled for us.

And I swear I love you like the sun burns for the moon, like fire loves innocence, like Romeo loved Juliet, till death had they yet to part.

I swear I'd keep you the way I clutch onto diamond-shaped heartaches with rough, jagged edges.

But if you ask me to, I swear I'd let you go like a wild bird caged for too long, so we would end classically - we'd end a tragedy, but it would be a tragedy worth living, and I wouldn't regret one bit of it.

(So how far am I willing to go?)