I’ve cried a million tears in my life
maybe more than that
I thought it was part of living…
but it was never life
and I didn’t want to live it.

But the day we came together
something changed for me
every tear felt like a diamond
shining with millions of mirrors
reflections of my heart
as if there was a glass slipper,
somewhere beneath my pain.

And every time you spoke
I felt like I was worth something,
like the lessons I learned were wrong
and those words grew castles like trees
around a slipper I will never learn to fit,
because I am not a princess
and you are too much of a prince.

You see,
because of you
every bus stop on the way
to wherever it is I’m going
makes me think of you,
of the day you asked me if I ever wanted the bus to come
and you are the only person I could ever answer that for.

Because of you,
I believe in my diamonds
and every time one falls, I know it cannot harm me
because someone once told me that we all have our own reasons
for forgetting to breathe
and those things are the ones that heal us
and in you I have found my breath-thief
and in writing those words
I find myself gasping for air
because honest things are beautiful
and beautiful things are terrifying.


I wish upon every smiling star,
because of you
asking them
to bring me back for just a moment,
to every night
you ever said “I love you”
because when I say it back, I mean so much more than that
I mean that I need you
that I believe in you
that I know you’ll never need buses
to make it to those stars
and no one doubts you’ll go further

I even only dare to write this because of you,
because you taught me that words are like sparrows
catching air under a ceiling of sunlight,
they only know that their wings are tipped in silver
if they see the glint in another’s eyes,
and my world would shine if yours would
for the glimmer of these words.

I realized today that sparrows don’t fly together
in their crazy, formless dance
because they know they are perfect
but simply because they are not
because that flawless shimmer
in another sparrow’s eyes
has power enough to make perfect doves
of each of us.

And I think I’m starting to believe
that when scars heal
they spread out plumage
as white as that of doves
and in your eyes I am as white as snow
and your wings are tipped in gold.