STRIPED

One stripe of red, along my arm, or is it your arm, I can’t tell anymore...

I love you so much, too much.

One stripe of orange,

you always loved oranges.*

And people with ginger hair.

I never had ginger hair.

Yellow is the color of your shirt you wore

the day you said three words

three words.

I

on Valentine’s Day 2015.

Love

I always thought it was corny to

You

ask someone out on Valentine’s Day.

That was the first time I

had a date on Valentine’s Day.

You.

Green is your eyes.

I always loved your eyes, they shone when you were sad,

but also when you were happy.*

Blue is the color you wished your eyes were.

I never wished that.

Violet was the name

of the girl who broke you.

Why did she have to break you?

Why couldn’t it have been me

on that day?

You were never the same.

Purple were the bruises around your eyes.

Those were contagious.

I caught the purple bruises after

sleepless nights.

Pink is the flush in your cheeks

I remember you always hated winter, even though I loved it,* so I would go out, and

you would bundle up to go outside, even when it

was for only two seconds.

Then you’d wear your jacket for the rest of the day.

A stripe of black for

What those mean kids called you,

because they were too ignorant to see

that you were Hispanic.

White is the color you wished you were,

because you didn’t want them to talk

I loved your skin,*

I never wanted you to rub bleach on your cuts until the skin on your arms

looked like sheets, like sheet music.

Violins. You could play the violin, the flute, and the piano.

I love your voice.*

You got kicked out of choir because you

stole a box of conversation hearts for me,

but you could sing.

You could sing.

I loved your hair, how it twisted around my fingers as if it knew me.*

It probably did that for everyone though, not just me.

I loved your lips when they were against mine.*

And I loved your wrists.* You always had small wrists.

You used to joke about how the police would never be able to arrest you,

because the handcuffs wouldn’t fit.

I loved your jokes.*

They always seemed funny to me, even when no one else laughed.

When just the two of us laughed, it felt like

An inside joke that I’ve always wanted to be a part of.

Your laugh was the only one I heard after I told a joke,

but maybe that's because I loved it,*

even when you thought it was awkward.

I loved the curl of your fingers around my skin, even when,

Your nails dug into my palm and your knuckles turned white from anxiety,

But I still loved your fingers around mine.*

I love Valentine’s Day because it’s the day I met you.*

I remember the way you’d hug me, and it felt so intimate yet

Not too intimate*

I remember your soft skin,

Your bleached white scars.

I remember you, and I love you.*