Beauty Poem by Tate Blackman

She forgot to breathe that day
When guns turned men into weapons
And instruments were played
She was the thunder pressing electricity to his lips
Causing storms to brew cyclones into planets
She was a bible in an offering plate
Turning bibles into cash to save her place in pews
He was her book mark to keep from bending pages
He kept her straight
When they kiss she thinks of rocket hips
And all those stereotypical things to think when people kiss
She rode bikes into moons to catch his light
He wanted cheese to prove her
So she brought back love poems to write
On days when her body was bent at right angles
And her mind cast shadows onto moving cars
He would hold her hand just to help her feel
That pulses still happen when the Earth stands still
When death knocks at her crystal door
She does back down from his steel
She welcomes death onto mats that say come in
While love tries to break through glass bubbles just so she can take a breath
Death will harvest her remains to soil of where it began
He was her one time only world record
He was her sip of tea on windy days
Chill in her bones down deep
Her tangled bed rest head
On his tangled heart chest
They didn't seem to understand just yet
How fights and arguments can ferment into personality's
Turn relationships into passion
Boom
Fires
Boom
Bad days but boy oh boy great nights
Boom
Real actual real love
Boom
They had collision in air
Bringing fall and flight into question
Twisting heads into questions
She was an empty case
Each thing she loved had taken a shadow box
Each day was her chosen
She lived with a fierce sense of longing
A longing to have him in her arms
A longing to bear witness
When she was stricken
Ill as bone deep drought
She let his hands peel ribcages like stickers
To lay in collection books
She took to his waters like grapes on vines
Always thirsty for his eyes
She saw beauty in the most peculiar of things
Leaves turning into snow patches on highways
Skies roaring with anger for rain
There is a beauty in death
One that simmers to boil
On the surface grotesque
Grime
Yet delve a little deeper and find roses with thorns
Patches of lilies blooming in the everglades
An eruption of nature to smell and feel
In death she was reborn into pollen
Repopulating the snap dragons
Into fire-less monsters
She swayed nature with her clandestine cheek bones
A puff of smoke in the distance rose