tiny, wilting hands, and butterscotch fingers

his skeletal cheeks lost their faint glow

i loved him, loved his golden tears

his honey eyes and rice cake wrists

i wished to hold him close

until my heartbeat sang him a lullaby

and lavender kissed his crinkled lips

his tender flesh stung with each cobalt path

his misery carved along the lines of his skin

his chest held captured sunshine and cotton candy clouds, and yet he wept

somewhere, lost in the mauve mornings, i found him weeping

suffocated by his tears, until the salt left his eyes dry and dusted crimson

suffocated by his clawing hands, worn and scattered with webs of fear

suffocated by his pleas, the ones that crawled from his throat while he lie in restless slumber

no matter how long i held him, whispered to him, begged for sleep's warm arms to whisk him away

he continued to weep, shaking me

asking for the sun

he looked for the golden light he craved in my eyes

his mouth shuddering and his teeth marring his tongue

waiting for me to give him the sun

to retrieve the frail petals he'd left in his wake

touched by splotches of scarlet, and despondent with defeated anguish

and give him a reason to bloom again

for his chapped lips to blossom red once more

for the syrup to leave his blood, so he could move again

for his eyes to arise from their darkened fog, emerge from the blindness and embrace the world

caramel shaded and coffee lined

but as much as i loved him, i could not give him the sun

my sunflower boy, he needed its warmth

he'd grown so cold, he'd been stained azure, and left to die within the constraints of his fragile flesh

he held my fingers, clutched at them, and i sobbed, seeing their ghostly paleness

i missed his wilting hands and butterscotch fingers

i missed his honey tears, born from the uncontrollable warmth in his chest

the homely hearth that simmered within him

i missed his voice, sleeking down the plush dips of his rosebud petals, and coiling in my stomach

i missed my heart's keeper, the one who lived on my smiles, and craved for the sugar i strung in his hair

but he did not return

he was trapped underneath my heavy, filmy gaze

and his words died beneath his throat, his last lingering warmth slowly deserting him

i felt him grow numb to my touch

my sunflower boy hadn't survived the winter

he'd gone without me, and i laid in the snow until my skin broke away

thinking of the love i'd lost

because i couldn't give my precious flower his sun