When you’re here,
it feels like you’re somewhere else.
Your gaze;
it’s distant lately -
you won’t look at me,
with those chatoyant,
pale,
marbled eyes.
That choose to belittle my entirety
when they pluck at each individual “flaw” -

“faults”

that I never even knew I had.
Your words are empty.
Our conversations fake.
And your lust often replaces your love.
But I ignore it
when I get the chance to trace the line of your silhouette
with my fingertips,
while your fingertips dance over me;
when you feather your nails
through my hair,
and pull.
You’re like a noose.
When you walk your hands
up my thigh,
and grasp.
You’re like a thief.
When you scatter your lips
across my chest,
and bite.
You’re like an animal.

But after,
lying next to you - weary and jaded -
my mind wanders.
Then suddenly you’re not there and I’m brooding in some strange solitudinous sense…
Then I’m not wandering but I’m crawling,
because I’m overwhelmingly drained,
and overcome with Hiraeth.
Back to reality.
To the reality of our broken “love”
that hangs by a mere thread –
thread that I used to create
exquisite things,

art.

That’s suddenly unraveling; unpicking the delicate stitches in my skin
that I once used to entice you with.
I’m a prisoner
to my past;
It trips me every time I’m finally leading the race,
and I,
in the dust,
watch in defeat as everyone passes by me.
I was your cynosure;
now I am invisible
even to you -
my shame outshining my truth.
I feel exposed,
yet really, I am still hidden behind the same mundane mask
that fabricates my fraudulent smile.

Our fights are a screaming red flag.
I get trapped further in my own personal pandemonium the longer I’m with you
so,
I raise a white flag
and surrender.
Because it’s easier than when I get angry
longing for the feeling
of being in control.
In control and overpowering
your cruel and cutting words.
Because when words come from your mouth,
it means and hurts,
more than from any stranger.
It’s this bittersweet enlightenment,
of your true judgement,
straight from your tongue;
guess the cat must have had it all this time.
It allows me
to realise
that someone I’m so infatuated with
could secretly view me as more of a sort of dalliance.

I don’t know why I’m surprised.

An awkwardness lingers in the air now
like the breeze in the room
that chills my skin and raises my hair the same way your touch once did.

You leave when inconvenient for me
and return when convenient for you,
but trust me “baby”,
how you leave,
says more than how you love.
You love -
by playing me.
Like an instrument
when we are in bed, in the dark.
Decadent.
Dissolute.
Dissipated.
But also like a fool when I fall.
Hopelessly.
Helplessly.
Habitually.
for that familiar taste and touch
of false safety -
for the feeling of home in your arms,
for the unique scent embedded into your skin,
that would sooth me to sleep
like I never could
alone.

Sometimes
sleeping nestled like two birds,
was an escape for us.
Because sleep was so rare.
I went from feeling isolated to embraced -
you would evoke the most pleasant images that would conjure in my mind
and follow me;
to make my persisting nightmares
and ceaseless,
over-thought anxieties
just the slightest bit better.
Because I could feel your warmth radiating,
under these soiled sheets.
And because my wanderlust burned out;
like the candles that lit our bedside, when you were next to me.
I didn’t wish to be elsewhere anymore - I was finally content, and more.
So.
Much.
More.
Because in my repose,
you were without doubt,
the first -
and only,
thing I looked forward to.
And in my wake
you were just as eagerly anticipated.

A voice - intoxicating like no other,
built with distinct, harmonious vibrations
that I recognise immediately…
A sound that induces paranoia.
Hands - designed and crafted
to strum my pain,
like a younger him
strummed guitar strings.
To sad songs I still listen to
with my lonely ear pressed to the walls of your world,
while refusing the tear attempting to escape my eye
as I reminisce in a time
that was simpler -
as the nostalgia becomes heavy
on my conscience.

So yes -
I hate that I love you;
because you’re like red wine.
Delicious now,
dry later,
with a lengthy after-taste that never quenches my thirst.
I hate that I admire you.
I hate that I adore you.
I hate that I tell myself
you deserve your name on a crown
and how my knees are cemented at the base of your throne.
I can’t stop justifying you
because you’re more addictive than any of the drugs.
I start to forget.
But it just comes rushing back in a matter of seconds.
Then my eyes roll back into my head
as I hear the heavy,
desperate breaths,
and see a blinking montage of images
flash,
briefly,
in my mind,
like a movie on an aged and broken tape.
Of us.
Doing what we’re best at -
even though we shouldn’t.
You;
the artist.
I;
the canvas.
Spread apart, begging for completion
and your signature tattooed
on my

skin.