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This Is for You

Camila Lopez-Passapera

What happened to you?

You can’t remember the last time you felt
as if things were ever going to work out
so you drown in pale navy rooms, attempt
to fill every single one of the empty spaces
that take up so much room inside of you.

You act as if you are some book that’ll end
up on a dusty, unvisited shelf— you toe
the line between poetry and prose yet never find
a place where they can meet, never realize
you are a word most can’t quite pronounce, let
alone rhyme with anything. It’s impossible
to find a perfect match, so you settle for flames
that eventually turn blue, burning skin off
until there’s nothing but bone to touch with.

There is nothing left for you
to love and keep at the same time; the two
have been so often mutually exclusive that
your mind, body, and soul is now a house filled
to the brim with people who love to leave
the lights on and you can’t make rent anymore.

I know you’re living, borrowing time and money
to stay upright until the next person comes and rips
that beating thing straight out of your chest, watches
it come out in pieces and leaves. No one wants
to fix broken things unless they’ll be of use, and who
really wants a beaten heart these days? People are gruesomely
obsessed with new, shiny playthings, so you convince
yourself you’re better off plastic, making yourself
appear unbreakable and unafraid, even though everyone
is waiting for you to snap in two next time someone forgets
to read the instructions.

There is something alive inside of you that wants
to tear pages apart, shatter like glass, live
off words of strangers on the street, to be
anything but impersonal. Let it.

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