The woven silk of
Silence, petals fluttering
A delicate day
And the world is wavering
Between soft kiss and collapse
I loved a girl
like the earth loves the rain,
knowing she’d never stay,
but needing her just the same.
She cried once in my arms
and I caught her tears
as if they were stars
fallen just for me...
but she wept for him.
I bandaged wounds
carved by another man’s hands,
whispering lullabies
to a heart that beat for someone else.
Every time she broke,
I shattered more quietly.
She kissed me...
like a door half-open,
warmth lingering on the threshold,
but her soul still pacing
somewhere far inside a house
I was never invited to live in.
And still,
I gave her my all,
a love without borders,
a fire without fuel,
a sea willing to drown
just to hold her reflection
for one more second.
Is this not the cruel poetry of love?
To give,
not for return,
but because you were born
with hands that only know how to hold,
even when holding means breaking.
They say unrequited love
is the purest kind.
Perhaps because it never has the chance
to rot with reality.
It stays eternal;
not because it lives,
but because it dies
beautifully.
To love like this
is to bleed in silence
and call it devotion.
To smile through heartbreak
because her happiness,
even in someone else's arms...
still feels holier
than my own.
- Cyrus K.
"I swear there is no greater burden than to wait without hope."
— Beau Taplin from The Waiting
She believes she knows my ache,
she thinks she understands my sorrow,
because once, she too was broken.
My pain is
a slow implosion,
a daily funeral
with no mourners,
a storm I must swallow
so she may walk beneath clear skies.
She remains with another,
while I cradle her chaos in the dark,
I try hold her world steady,
bleeding in silence,
so she never sees the stain.
Quietly tearing at the seams
just to keep her whole.
I laugh when I want to scream.
I smile so she can cry.
I disappear so she can shine.
And each day,
I wake inside a coffin
just to hold her hand.
This doesn't feel like love.
This is a man burning
so she may feel warm,
and never knowing
that the smoke
is me.
-Cyrus K.
She rests in the arms
of a man who cannot feel her storm,
while I drown
in the flood she left behind.
I feel like a spider,
strung with longing,
spin webs from torn ribs
to catch the ghost of her smile.
Her laugh...
a blade I swallow each morning,
thanking it
for the pain.
I would tear the stars
from the throat of the heavens
just to watch her eyes
glimmer one more time.
My love is not gentle,
it is blood and bone and burning rope.
It is sleepless nights
stitched with screams
no one hears.
This is love,
where I am the pyre
and she,
the flame
that never stays
but never dies.
-Cyrus K.
Joy Sullivan, from “These Days People Are Really Selling Me On California”, Instructions for Traveling West
“One smile can start a friendship. One word can end a fight. One look can save a relationship. One person can change your life.”
— Unknown
so soft it hurts