The Crayon Portrait

In English, we say: "I miss you". But in poetry, we say: My eyes keep handing your name to every doorway, every arriving flight—like a child showing strangers a crayon portrait and asking, "Have you seen him?". I am that child, standing at the gates of my own life, holding up a messy, colorful version of a love I cannot claim. I hand your name to the wind, to the strangers passing by, to the empty rooms of my house. Everything I do, I like to smile, but it is the smile of the child with the portrait—hopeful, desperate, and entirely alone. I watch the flights land, carrying people who belong to someone, while I remain the coin in the ocean, the plane in the triangle, the voice in the silence. I have my space. I have my fire. And in this 1225-word confession, I have finally spoken.