I scribble down words with my ballpoint pen
Thinking every word I write is a scar I’ll mend
You take your paintbrush covered in red
Making love to the canvas,
Covering up this beautiful mess
As both our hearts are bleeding from our chests.

You tell me to keep writing
As I work my fingers down the bone
With each stroke you uncover something unknown
I peek at the easel and see you drawing our home.

Our color palettes fail to match
As your sky is painted a magnificent blue
And I’m writing that there’s a storm
Illustrating mine as the blackest of black.

I keep turning pages as I fill in the spaces
You keep moving easels to find the right angle
And as you keep mixing colors to find the right shade
I jot down lines of our song that’s never been played.

You begin to outline a white picket fence
My sentences start to blend together, out of sequence
You move your brush and we’re walking on cobblestones
My pen hits the paper and our whole life is postponed.

I look at you and you look at me
It seems now there’s miles between us no one can see
My pen is running out of ink
And you start to wash your brushes in the sink.

-Rachel Allen