Mourning Cursive - April’s December

It was a national day, but nothing felt worth celebrating. flags half-raised in the wind, I pieced myself together from remains of melancholia, And leftover scraps of ennui. You asked about the weather, I said it looked like a tornado — I was spinning into a dreary dream that felt too slow to escape. You laughed the way roses wilt away, soft at first, then hollow, Graceful but already rotting and took another sip from a broken wine glass, filled with gin. I watched the garden untangle itself in the breeze of an April’s December, the vines climbing back into the earth like they’d had enough of the light. I hung holiday lights with whiskey breath, each bulb glowing faint and bruised, Your hair was tied in sloppy knots, Like bows on unopened presents no one had the courage to unwrap. I remember the shade of crimson from your wrists, you left painted across the white picket fence, the paint cracking under rain that tried to wash it all away But only made it bleed all the more. The storm rattled the shutters and bent the world sideways, but we stayed out there — you with your frayed coat sleeves, me with my hands in my pockets, pretending the wind wasn’t carrying pieces of us into the street. By midnight, the bulbs hummed in their sockets, the whiskey was gone, your eyes had the dull shine of leaving, and your laughter had dried to silence. I thought about asking you to stay, but the words felt like wet matches. Instead, I watched the rain drip from your hair, and knew you were already somewhere else.