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Mauve is the lipstick we stole from your mother, 

smeared sideways across your mouth and all over 

your Sprite bottle, 

a clandestine weight in your pocket  

She's hidden, cowering in the corner,

as she waits, mouth open,

words frozen on her lips.

She does not speak.

I mold my sadness into poetry and she watches me,

amber eyes taking in everything and nothing.

The wood is lush and dappled with light, 

the first April flowers poking out of the ground, snow

melting under my bare feet. 

The ache of you digs into my chest like a sharpened blade,

when she sang, she sang a rhapsody

tender words that arced across the room on golden strings

like her un-brushed curls that flew in the wind

from the open window behind her.

Mud mingling with snow mingling with dirt,

the remnants of red nail polish from 

Valentine's Day,

how has it lasted so long? 

The sun a hot fiery ball over the cloud-speckled horizon,

I don't want the cold hallways,

their chill seeping underneath 

my thin regulation gown and settling in my bones.

I don't want the nurses,

with their tight, sympathetic smiles