All my life,
everything around me has always been
black or white,
good or bad,
right or wrong.
You’re the only thing I have ever seen that is gray.

Gray like the smoke you puffed from two trembling lips,
the smell of nicotine masking your sweatshirts and gentle hands.

Gray like the sky on those mornings when you would roll over and kiss me so softly,
pleading for me to stay in bed with you all day.

Gray like the kitten we found outside the drugstore.
The one you nursed back to health,
showing me how deeply you could love.

Gray like the stones we skipped across the almost frozen river,
the night you held me in your arms until dawn.

But now when I see you walking down the street,
you’re a different kind of gray.

You’re a burnt marshmallow,
a charred black exterior with gooey white insides.

To your displeasure,
your hard exterior fools everyone
but me.

Because I was the one who sat around the fire that night,
listening to you beg me to stay,
as I impaled your heart on a sharply pointed stick
and roasted your pure white body over a flame of hatred
Til you became this irreversible jaded mess of a fireside snack.