Origami

You made me paper cranes,
gave me birds that couldn't fly.
I tried to teach you origami,
but your hands were clumsy
and you preferred to cut than fold.

You stapled together pieces
with glaring metal stitches;
it wasn't art, but surgery
on something we both knew was dead.

Your signature,
ligature marks
in bleeding ink
scratched in the corners,
nearly indecipherable;
the words "hate" and "love,"
they always read the same to me
(however it was written.)

I tried to teach you how to fold a heart
to place your love inside.
"I love you" (deep) inside...
But your hands were clumsy,
and they crumpled each attempt.

So you made me birds to set me free,
but they couldnt fly.
They relied upon your love,
and like origami,
it was a sense, a skill,
an art you never learned - -
but not for lack of trying.

That flock I never dared to count,
oh, you would have made me more,
(one for every day we were together)
but I was running out of sky.

They were ugly and unlucky,
misshapen, crooked, broken,
but I hung them from my ceiling,
every patchwork crane you made me
out of loyalty and love,
though they made me cry at night.

I left them looming there
out of misplaced nostalgia
and a fear that gripped me
like I imagined the claws
of a giant crane could do;
strangled by the fear
that they would only be replaced
by a twisted wire cage
hanging like a noose above my bed,
crafted by hands
more skillful
and dangerous than yours.