To the Girl in my English Class

You belonged to the moon

Hidden behind your eye’s blinds

There was no sunlight peeking through

small spaces, I didn’t know you

But I knew this much:

You have a tongue that traps your words 

Silenced stories waiting to be discovered 

And hands that hang like the pill bottles I once knew 

Mocking me — a mind of a puzzle

with mismatched pieces 

Doubled vision

Conversation

And biting air against pale sickly skin 

I loved you 

And perhaps I was the only one who did

This made me want to pull you out of your own shadow

and show you the other side of the moon

If only you would listen

Kisses of cocaine 

The touch of ecstasy

Cracking knuckles and dry nailbeds

Discolored skin

We were once lovers 

But we taught ourselves to be strangers 

We were silently intimate 

I saw through your painted canvas

full of inviting colors 

You were not good although you wanted to be

Beyond your voice you were begging

To be heard

To be saved 

To be seen. 

A hall full of mirrors 

Our other halves follow us 

Footsteps with a delayed echo

A smell unable to be pin-pointed

although it seems familiar 

Tip-toeing through the shadows 

A motionless light at the end 

Only one of us will ever touch 

Photography by Sumner McMurtry