For the Stories Left Untold

You used to make purple velvet in your dreams, arrange
the sky ever since you met her. You watch her from afar / you ink her name
on your tastebuds. But she can't see you (again). Can't feel you.

She is fighting—for leaving the stories untold. This thing
crushes you, but like some things, it also makes you.
Maybe you will understand why your love story did not make it to
The New York Times. She's owning the truth, weaving it, making it hers.

Folded arms—map that stretches from the country
on her head to the one in her eyes. In these papers are the purple velvet you once dreamed, the ink you once admired, the stories not told, truth crumpled, decorated with the bold fonts everyone want to see. & the tiny ones never seen, spoken of.

She's happier. She left it all behind—remembering moments / ignoring days.
But your life felt shapeless.
Your favourite video game comes to the rescue.
Breathless, you ask, “What's the problem? Tell me. Got my text?”
Anxiousness has smoked you / out of your strong emotions. Dreams of a worldview thrown out of a window, reviewed by flying birds and fiery darts.

“Why are you causing me so much pain?”
You ask her in your last phone call / She laughs / Your phone laughs too.
It's a funny question. Funny questions are not to be trusted, even answered.
She's happy. She's been long gone—happiness, found in stories untold.

You keep her folder / maybe one day she will realize there is no same love, same story. How do you shape an object that has gone out of shape?
You will sing the tune of erasure, to erasure, nostalgia that
she will keep fighting.

For the Stories Left Untold

Meaning is what happens in learning, in reconciliation
with the steps we take, the stories she told.
You remember again that she said
she would love you to death.

You remain awake but you are dreaming again.