My hand aches
forging a kinship with my heart
and my head, side effects of
sleepless nights
and too many poems.
My words render no verdict,
reduced to scrawled symbols
inadequate of expressing
the affliction of my affection
for you.
The rhetoric betrays me—
fractured, a breakdown.
So I crumble the yellowed sheets
of failed attempts
and misconstrued, empty syntax,
then lift my brush,
painting your tragedy instead
and breathing you in.
I come up with nothing
but a faint silhouette of a stranger
in a convoluted color—
someone infinitely weaker
than you.
My fingers bleed as they go numb
because Lord knows
you’re a beautiful mystery
shrouded in your quiet wisdom
as I am cloaked by my words.
No matter how true,
they create a fallacy
because no one—
not even I—
can define you.
Photo by Adi Constantin on Unsplash
Gretchen Corsillo
Gretchen Corsillo is a librarian and writer from the greater NYC area. She holds a B.A. in Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing from Ramapo College and a Masters in Library & Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh. Gretchen is the author of a bimonthly column for Public Libraries Magazine, and her work has also appeared in Salon and the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Blog. She is currently working on a novel. Learn more about her at gretchenkaser.com.
