He makes modesty all the blacker
and denies how one can escape through time
He makes staring at the carpet
all the grayer
with his thoughts like water
violent and excessively beautiful
slamming against my blacker nerves,
of red tears on skin and blue
ones blinked away from pain,
separate from the thrashing chasm

He speaks like a heart does,
in tugs and glances that
are intense and smoldering,
written into the creases of his face

I speak like a bruise does,
bleeding black and blue onto things
with my words, aching and fading,
pressed into creases of paper
like this.