Last night we tiptoed in laughing circles
around the truth we both know
a sound
a syllable
a feeling lighter than air,
a helium delirium inflating the balloons in my heart with joy.
It's hung suspended between goodbyes and goodnights,
a weightless pause spun heavy in meaning,
words made shy and sweet by the newness of it all.
And last night you rambled through your hiccups
about the importance of getting it right,
of furnishing words in fireworks and gestures
lamenting your romanticism,
which I hang in garlands around my room
and through my mind,
throwing open the windows of both
to shout,
a sound
a syllable
releasing a feeling lighter than air,
a helium delirium of joy.
Jul 17, 2019
Jul 17, 2019 at 4:15 AM UTC
two weeks of little loves
began,
with the smell of wet beech forest and moss
in the back of your van,
your hands were moonlit spiders
around my waist
laughter bubbling up around us in the dark,
and you tasted like smoke and smiles I couldn't see.
little loves took root
on my birthday,
running barefoot through the park stealing kisses and road cones
after sun drenched beers wrapped around my brain,
leaving me hazy in the heat and hops
and dormant hopes
I had forgotten,
taking form in the scratchy sounds of a vinyl
you gifted the night through my open porch door,
to combat the sound of cicadas.
Little loves grew roots so slowly
I didn't notice until you were gone,
We'd grown a garden instead of apart.
May 21, 2019
May 21, 2019 at 10:25 AM UTC
too lovely
you were to stay for long,
instead
you left a tidemark on my walls,
a gentle swell and retreat I welcomed with delight and open arms
through the doors and windows,
awakened by the smell of salt and quiet happiness
and by your laughter in the waves.
And the little treasures hidden beneath,
the rocks and flowers bumping and rolling in the current
you left for me to find on the floor,
tiny keepsakes of a happy time,
reminding me
how sublime it is to float.
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 6:22 PM UTC
She drifts in and out of lives
a stray comet offering brief illumination
before setting off on another lap about the world.
how are you so heartless,
asks the earth of her lofty voyage,
here to spark heat and small hopes,
the nonchalant aftermath of your visit,
only to leave as a flash in the night.
oh to stay a comet-
if you move fast enough,
it's easy to forget you are dust in orbit,
if you move fast enough
you are not heartless but frozen,
in constant motion to forget
your heart only exists on earth,
in those fleeting moments where you allow the ice to melt.
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019 at 9:39 PM UTC
Once the war was over,
and we stood on opposing sides,
waving white flags in the wreckage and the blood,
I took myself and the lingering ring of gunfire
to mourn my loss and grieve.
I focused on mending;
mending my heart and newly missed limbs,
immersing myself in new routines,
scrubbing away the debris left under my nails
the mechanical effort of breathing all day
leaving me exhausted each night in a bed for two,
curled around an empty space which grew sombre in the dark.
Eventually,
I could tuck you away in the back corner of the cupboard
in the box labelled 'before the war,'
and I could breathe just fine
but couldn't find my voice,
trapped in the fortified cocoon I'd built to convalesce.
These days though,
I am butterfly new,
uncertain and yet unfurled,
braving the winds outside the cocoon,
in hope they will catch the voice I'm finding.
Dec 12, 2018
Dec 12, 2018 at 5:31 AM UTC
I was listening to Kings of Leon
trapped on the bus for 2 hours
between a lady who had fallen asleep
and endless beech forest skimming past the window
green green grey green green grey,
until we broke through into farmland
past the national park sign
(ka kite ano ko Te Waiponamu),
and a shock of yellow broom flowers
waved us onwards past the lambs
and streams idling through the paddock.
40 minutes from home
it's stuffy and I'm carsick and hungry,
but it's Spring,
the sun's out and I'm just happy to be here.
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 4:22 AM UTC
I laid a galaxy to rest today,
A journey of discovery,
Through stars and feeling and ultimately to tragedy,
It burned out from building planets into nothingness,
comet fire dying quietly in the atmosphere above.
And I buried it in the ground to feed the roots of a new universe,
Leaving flowers on headstone for the Galileo in my heart.
Oct 16, 2018
Oct 16, 2018 at 3:46 AM UTC
world-weary,
we sipped coffee,
one black,
one milk and sugar
brewed tentatively by hearts not quite unbroken
in an effort to mend the damage.
As usual you are fluent and fluid in words my tongue could not replicate,
You are a waterfall when I am a drought.
One day, maybe you'll speak to me, you say.
One day maybe I could tell you,
I held earthquakes and landslides in my bones
and clawed my way above the mud and debris to breathe again.
I emerged the sun of my own universe
and I am afraid to ever let that go.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 6:36 AM UTC
Can't you just love me again?
A whisper-wisp through the dark,
spoken in the night to familiar walls
you're helping your brother
paint a different colour,
masking forever words those walls have heard
and the time
I took acid
at your birthday
and watched the 70's wallpaper you've covered up melt like heated crayons
to join me on the floor,
rolling rainbows and laughter through the air in a technicolour soup,
in an effort to forget your face in the next room.
But can't you just love me again?
You want more than friends who are occasionally lovers,
to find meaning in the familiarity we sometimes share,
to amalgamate two bodies confidential in their knowledge of one another,
to illuminate my heart with another chance.
But you forget I say
into the silence and the drying Irish linen,
I've repainted the walls within
to erase a love which rendered us strangers,
built my heart its own house with no room for a former life,
so your words can do nothing but knock,
at a front door
now forever politely closed.
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 7:54 AM UTC
Sometimes I find myself
wedged inside a conversation,
comparing wallpaper and mortgages,
company vehicles and baby names,
struck up by friends,
over the same beers we drank discussing
politics and *** noodles,
life after university and ******* on acid
marvelling at the galactic deviations that occur
in the crevasse between your early twenties and
twenty six.
Jul 21, 2018
Jul 21, 2018 at 7:03 AM UTC