we weren't in love
not really
we just loved the way we made
each other feel;
the corruption, the restless slumbers, the angst-filled poetry, the vertiginous triumph of our like-mindedness, the rotten smiles and how we'd
pay rent to the pain inside us
every morning
we were hungry wolves
howling at a cold, pale and majestic
moon
we failed to see the beauty in
the setting sun, the clouds bleeding red
and the birds wheeling to wherever
home was
we could have been handymen
ourselves
in a lopsided junk shop
surrounded by rows of wood, iron, veneer, glass, tin, bronze, us
we could have fixed fractures, patched holes and glued tears but the only
thing we would have ignored was
ourselves
perhaps we might have attained
the beauty of broken words-
words left half said and placing
their weight on the eyes and in pockets of air-
if we had mended our cracks,
patched up our tears and lacquered our fissures in gold, like the art of kintsukuroi
maybe we might have been something more than companions in wretchedness
