Colorless 

Jordan Patria

White to me, isn’t pure

It burns

But not the way a fire turns the world orange

Or how a hot silver teapot screams

It’s the feeling of holding your breath for so long

That your insides combust

The feeling of fakeness

An old woman with perfectly straight, white teeth

Platinum blond hair, splitting at the ends

White snowflakes hung in a classroom

It’s not peaceful

Because when your eyes see it

They sting

Watering

Begging to look away

Its clean in the way a woman washes her hands

Scrubbing and scrubbing

Scrubbing them raw

Leaving just searing flesh

White is the feeling of taking a deep breath

Expecting to feel fresh, and new

Just to get a mouth full of chemicals

Burning and searing their way down your esophagus

Lingering like a pit in your stomach

It burns

Leaving the most horrendous scars

It burns

Too Close to the Sun

I look into the blinding light to ease my mind

But on the inside I’m burning

And it gets worse before it gets better

At least that’s what they say

But you don’t know what it’s like to be nothing at all

You’ve never tried to catch up to a sinking sun

Leaving all your love and longing behind

Because as I was sprinting

I saw you

Standing in the sunlight

Laughing

Your just witnessing and watching 

Oblivious beauty

You’ve got flames in your eyes

The same light that fueled the fire 

Burning a hole between us

And I can’t hear a word your saying while I watch your lips move

But your screaming and your shouting 

And tears are streaming down 

Love can’t hold us, not like it’s supposed to

So I let go

And you do too

The breath in my chest gets stuck

As I watch your light flicker

But I shut my mouth 

And waste the days away

Not knowing we would lie in our graves

Both dreaming of the things we could’ve been

And the light we could have made.