my soul
is a tulip bulb
buried
upside down
in the brackish muck
of unsolicited tears

she baked me a cake with a file in the center, i thought to whittle away the bars, but when i looked closer it said divorce along the rusted belly, my false sense of procured freedom was in her sudden ability to soar as the watchers on the wall carried rifles ready for any sign of attempted escape

my smile
is a spasmodic
response
to an overload of
fight or flight
chemical despondency

there was never a time when i felt like nearly enough, she had a way of reminding me that i was a stopgap when things got too real, as the afterglow faded from her eyes, my importance dropped, it came as no surprise that when i hit my lowest she made a mad dash using my broken form to protect her delicate feet from the floor that was now most assuredly lava