turned around

you looked back

once, again, and lastly

you shot me daggers

not like blades

but like flames

that made my paper heart

flutter

not like butterflies

but like ash

incinerating my fragile

flickering, tissued, love lantern

had you turned around

you would have seen

the pile

on the ground

the grey

the dust

the fragments

that were now fertilizer

for the dirt

and they were followed by

once again

the puddle

formed from my weeping

from the tearing

and the shredding

and the cindering

of my hopes

and you would have witnessed

the soil soaking up my cries

and transmuting our love

as the salt water made pulp

and the seeds stretched

both down into the earth and up

because they could not be denied

and they would not be fully realized

until they rose

like miracles alchemized

to the skies

again and always

smaller and bigger

than the both of us

since we got turned around