Dull knives

You don't have to lie and say you like it to save my feelings because all I ever asked for was the kind of brutal honesty that changes the filter on my pupils and makes the whites of my eyes sting the way they did when I got pink eye in the third grade.

But you're afraid to write down how you feel because maybe then I'll hold you accountable for the words shaped like dull kitchen knives that were aimed at my murmuring heart.

Your tongue is tattooed with the lies you tell yourself and I've never liked the taste of ink.

Ink is meant for paper and lies are meant to be whispered into pierced ears that don't know any better.

So here I am, sitting in an empty hall begging the swelling in my eyes to go down and the saltwater on my favorite t-shirt to dry before the bell rings and releases 2000 faces I've never cared about.

Because you were always the one I looked for in the crowd.

But you weren't like them. 

You had color in your cheeks and a reason. 

You didn't care that no one cared as long as I did and I told you I'd never stop.

But your cheeks are just as cold as the rest of them and that fire behind your words went out with that chilly November wind.

So here's to painting with the grain and moving with the masses because originality died with you.

And it didn't leave a legacy.