Peach Tea

Purple

Is the color of when it happened

The exact shade of melting grape popsicles

A deep and blanketing color

Surrounded you

Surrounded me

You breathe out

I breathe in

I didn't notice it at first

The thick purple fog

Until i couldn't breathe

Choking on it

Drowning in it

I only noticed when

You let go of the hands

That destroy more than they create

I lifted up the corners of the universe

Searching for you

From when you let go

And when I thought I found you

I realized I never really had you

In the first place

 

Im forgetting the sound of your voice

And i haven’t decided yet whether

That is making or breaking me

You said

That this was taking its toll on you

But what about me?

Do you even know how hard this is for me?

That made everything inside of me

Catch fire

And i hate myself for being angry

That you could never understand

The skinless patches dotting my lips

That feels the way cut grass smells

Or that my throughs alone

Have made my body an ant farm

Full of things in too scared to understand

 

Im angry

And i hate myself for being angry

At you for leaving

I should be angry at myself

For not noticing

That my mind is racing backwards

Confusing colors with sound

Friend with foe

For thinking that the venom

Dripping down my chin

Tasted like peach tea

 

Now i'm apologizing

Every other week

Promising that i finally learned

How to float again

Even though

I'm not sure i ever knew how to

In the first place

If anything i've filled my pockets

With all of my heavy burdens

So i'm slipping

Further and further

Out through the soles of my shoes

The ones you helped me pick out

Purple has never

Hurt me like this

A baseball bat crushing my ribcage

Kind of sensation

But i guess there is a first

For everything

 

I don't blame you really

For jumping ship

Before its inevitable

Downfall

I wish I could have too

But i'm forced to live inside this vessel

That i've capsized too many times

And tried to patch the holes

With memories I found in my attic

Like the time

You challenged the thunder

To become something bigger than itself

As the hurricane that laced our breath

With lightning

Moved with us across the mud

Your laugh meeting mine in the air

To create something

That I would later destroy

Or the time

We flipped through

Your old family albums

Your smile wide enough

To bring all the walls down

Your favorite was

The picture of your family

Laughing and drinking iced tea

Because they were all

Smiling at different things

You’ve always had

A beautiful mind

 

Because of the way I am

And the way I think

And because you were so, so

Purple

Nothing will ever be as sweet

As when you would

Gently strum the strings of your guitar

I would always fall asleep

Because you made the room

Feel like blankets

And the thought

Of never being able to forget

How you were so

Green-yellow

Back then

Sends me drowning

The memory of

Your green eyes

That could pass of as blue

And how you always say

Pretty things

About ugly people

Fills my lungs

Making me feel

Like drinking lemonade

Upside down

A burning remorseful feeling

Propelling me to rock bottom

Where I meet a girl

With mismatched eyes

And a laugh that could cause natural disasters

 

Now there's something that i've been trying to express

For the past two years

Lodged in my throat

Ever since she got a cast

For a papercut

And I got a bandaid For

A bullet wound

 

The memory is dry and unwavering

Like swallowing sand

And I don't recall when it happened

Only that it did

It feels like the purest of ice water

In my veins

And i'm dying of thirst

A thirst to feel anything other than

The crushed velvet in my lungs

Or the moldy clementines

In my stomach

 

Yes

You hurt me, purple

By mailing the bruises

Back to sender

But I can't shake you off my fingertips

Like I could with everyone else

But you

You were different

After the fact

I never thought that you were

But maybe

I wasn’t

You spend all your time

Creating beautiful waves

Big ones

That looked like they were grabbing

At the sky

For someone

That was facedown in the sand the whole time