Etching Closer
She loved like charcoal
Messy and compressed
Staining my hands
Leaving her mark on my sheets
On my face
On my mind
Yet fickle enough to skirt away at the faintest sigh.
The harder she was pushed, the darker that she got.
It wasn’t until after I erased parts of her away
And cleared up space on my canvas
That I saw a portrait of myself beneath the ash.