Dark Murals

By Katie Johantges

You were weeping   when I found you.

You were tucked beneath steel­stained clouds and

opaque water,  expecting

something           to be done about the condition

in which you were.

Ivory flowers floated atop dim puddles:

clouds

held up by atmosphere no longer.

Birds tumbled

from the sky,

around your cold, colorless body,

but you weren't dead.

Your fingers, which seemed so strong when they glided across my cheeks

in the summer mornings,

bruised and bleeding, 

were a tiny mural of dark shades.

I was okay with being alone again.

Furiously raw guitar sounds

    that

          fell

from next­door’s windows were

stirring          that part of me that wanted

to be drunk on

expensive wine or cheap whiskey

and become              infatuated with everything.

You had tucked into your pocket a

wrinkled list             of people you had hurt,

   and my name was on it,

though I didn’t remember you causing me pain.

You could have been kinder to my

    inconsistencies.

       I tore the list into one hundred jagged pieces and set you free.