4th Day of National Poetry Month

 i look at my face in the dirty,

smudged up mirror,
and i see no life there
with eyes that are the deepest green they've been all year
but those same eyes
have involuntary tears
come to them every time
we step back into the church
because they are so connected
to the rest of my body
that they know we just need
a hug from a stranger
to feel heard
even if we don't know how to voice
our own testimony
or how to let our knees
fall to the altar again
and lips that are burning
and chapped from being shut up
for so long
because they're done
allowing men
that don't deserve them
take them from me
i've developed a fixation on love
and death
and sleeping
and the moon and the sun
because i imagine them so high
up in the sky
and the love affair
they have
like a romeo and juliet story
but they can't die
they are fighting to survive
because it may seem selfish
to kill your own soul
but isn't it also selfish to live
unless you're living for another
if a tree falls in the forest
does it make a sound
if no one is listening
i believe it does
but nobody is there to remember it
therefore it simply disappears
i think that's why i write about you so much
and how i turn every poem
i was writing about myself
into something describing you
because i want your existence
to mean something
even when we're both gone
i want to immortalize you
in adjectives and verbs
italicizing every word,
i want to emphasize.
to breath life into your name
and into the most beautiful words
i can think of
like the word serendipity
noun
finding something good
without looking for it
i found that in you
but just like the sun
has to go down
for the moon to return
i must go away
so that i can keep you in my sight
a bit longer
i don't know how much more pain
my eyes can take
so i'll shut them again
and go to sleep
maybe there I'll find you
in a more peaceful dream
but i'm not looking for you anymore
because i need a love
that is a greater good
than my heart thinks i deserve
so i'll wait until i find you
in another moment of serendipity
and i'll rest my knees on an altar
waiting for my God
to answer my prayers
in his own patient timing
i'm learning how to have patience
because i know once summer returns
the life will return to my face again
and i won't have to wear as much makeup
i won't have to worry
about the fat on my body
because my body won't be
the most important thing
about my existence
it'll be the sun beating down on me
as i sit on a fallen tree branch
near the creek
and as i write about your dark, blue eyes
always finding me again in my dreams.