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His name was David.
I sat next to him in primary school.
He wasn't like the other boys, he had an accent, was sarcastic, really funny;
We laughed together all the time, I thought of him at night in bed.
I remember freckles, and a giant smile,
He moved to America, and I missed him terribly,
Thought I was in love.

I was fifteen and he was twenty-nine.
I wrote his name in schoolbooks, spent hours making mixtapes,
Wrote an overblown and sentimental poem
Which I later showed him, covered my eyes
As he read it; he let me down gently,
I was awkward and chubby but probably endearing,
And it's always nice to be adored.
I didn't mind ego-stroking,
I'd tried no other sorts of stroking, back then.
*** wasn't on my agenda, I don't think I even felt a stirring down below.
Was I a late starter?
Let me know.

He was gay. Well and truly gay.
And he practised flirtation on me.
Theatre school was where I found myself, and blossomed,
We indulged in drama together,
And there was lust, finally;
He made my body boil and churn.
Licked my neck as he walked past me to tap practice:
I melted. A friend, dear friend, my **** gay friend.
I wanted, really wanted a man for the first time,
Did he want me, even a little? Or was it all theatricals for him?
I haven't seen him for years, but I found him on Facebook,
Maybe I should ask?

Tom was a philanderer,
Lived with him and two other girls at university;
He got one pregnant, dated the other,
Secretly had **** fun with me.
I'm not proud, I betrayed a friend for my body's demands,
And not for the last time.
But I was insane for that funny little man.
Now I remember unwashed hair and drunken despair,
Now I remember what destroyed me, for a while.
I should have learned my lesson.
She's still a friend; she still doesn't know.

Andy adored me for months
And I was fully aware, found it thrilling,
But didn't feel the same, I was settled.
He was welsh, weathered and wonderful.
He crushed then got over me,
And suddenly I was smitten.
Agonised for two years, then I was over him.
We're still friends, it is possible
To keep them in your lives,
It is possible to move on,
To have something different together,
To be somewhere inbetween lovers and friends.

I reread those last five lines,
And wish I could apply them to the last man on my list.
Feelings came out of the blue, grasped me roughly
And stole me away from my life, from happiness, from calm contentment.
Intimacy of our era;
Messages in the dead of the night,
Stolen kisses, dark despair.
I. Have. Never. Wanted. Anybody. More.
I'm not over him.
But it's just another crush, right?
it's just another crush?
I solved the puzzle
Found you weeping in the maze
Brought you home, at last.
Tiny Nutcracker
Back into the box with you
Until next year - sleep.
He writes as if he invented the word 'yearn'
Wistfulness and want in every line.
It's as though he's been starved of words his entire life
And now he's drowning in the dictionary,
Gorging on adjectives and language
A reformed wordarexic
Flooding the pages with need
And everything I want to read.
I hope he writes forever
For I, too, love to feed.
He hurts me in absentia,
Breaks me unknowingly.
I am fine bone china, casually dropped on a black slate floor.
Master of subtle agonies,
He twists me in two
Tortures me with shards of glass,
Cuts, cuts, cuts,
So deep, so deep, that even in my sleep
I bleed my need.
He hurts me invisibly
He hurts me with myself
I hurt myself, with him.
I hurt.
I hurt.
Today, I am heartsick and woebegone,
Full of the January blues, grey as the new-year sky.  
I wish I looked like Summer,
And could warm myself and everyone else,
I want to be warm, I want to be lovely, just for a while.

What happened to my look-twice smile?
You can buy flowers that you make into a tea.
They look like little wrinkled brains,
But unfurl in a glass to reveal spectacular colours.
Some people hate the taste, but I can taste those colours on my tongue,
Watch the petals dance as flavours bounce along my mouth,
Loving the unexpectedness, the eccentricity.
I have a thing for acquired tastes,
Falling in love with those that some might call 'hard work'
Because I love to unearth beauty from an unexpected source.
Look harder at those who try to hide,
They may be truly beautiful inside.
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