Broken Yellow Beads
Jey Paradox
Broken yellow beads
Spill all over the floor
She looks over her shoulder
And my stomach sinks.
Hello, I say.
I don’t know what else to say.
It’s pleasure and pain all at once.
Hello, she says.
Black and brown and amber
Are the only colors that I see right now.
My mind is brushing softness, bliss
The outer edges of my heart just grazing the surface
That I know is sealed shut forever
There used to be a fire, but it stopped burning
And all I want is for it to burn again
No matter how much destruction it causes.
I liked the feeling of the heat.
Music fills my ears every time her lips move,
Blocking out everything around me.
I want more.
Give it to me.
Get away from her.
I want more than just six seconds of this,
This happiness, this paradise,
That comes with love.
A deep, dark part of me asks who I am.
I cannot answer this question.
I do not know who I am.
She says my name
And my cheeks grow hot.
Broken yellow beads spill all over the floor
But I don’t stop to pick them up.
I need this, this split second. I need to store it in my mind
To preserve forever
As sustenance
For when I am hungry.
She walks away
And I slip
And fall
On the broken yellow beads
That have spilled all over the floor,
In my way.
I hate them.
I hate all of them.
I want to light the fire again,
And I want it to burn so bright that it outshines the sun.
I want the flames to burn everyone who has ever tried
To hurt her.
I want the embers to settle in my core, keeping me alive.
I want the smoke to form a ladder we can climb
To the moon
Where no one else is around.
Goodbye, she says.
Goodbye I say,
As I watch her walk into paradise
Without me.
That is how it was meant to be.
I sigh
And bend down,
And start to pick up
The broken yellow beads
That have spilled all over the floor.
This is for the people who love deeply and not widely, with their whole heart
And are not loved in return.
