and Your Bleeding Heart

tell me now
where was my fault
in loving you
with my whole heart

Early in the morning, before the suited commuters begin their impatient ant trails across the streets, a calm lingers over the city, an air of anticipation but also of regrouping. I stepped out to the sounds of differently suited workers cleaning up the city, preparing for the onslaught, holding together the backbone. The air was blessedly much cooler and I thought, I should always be out this early. Let the jet lags pass and all will be forgotten.

I have shed too many tears in the last few days for the relations around me. It catches me by surprise, and I wonder what has brought about this dust bowl storm. Lives crumble, from age or from love grown sour, and poisoned arrows fly from every direction. Definitions and boundaries have been re-evaluated, stretched, moved, only to be ripped at the seams too soon. You're making me sad, and I struggle to care. We fight with bigger words than in preschool, but the rules remain the same. Pride swells in our brains until pettiness trickles out of our ears and now what do we do?!

You leave without an answer. I couldn't make myself ask for it. The temperature spikes, and somebody pours an entire bottle of bleach on the sidewalk. Another night, washed away. Another bitter aftertaste, that won't go away in a brushing.