You told me that the
tables had shifted;
moved along their
legs into some other
space,
their shutters
had come down,
along
with the blinds
and it was all sent
down for good.
You said that
this place held
memories
etched into
every corner of
it's being,
you said you were
used to spending
afternoons
navigating through
the same corridors
you'd spent the
last year getting
lost in
and I thought
of the tables
turning themselves
away
in departure,
dust settling
on wood
turning into
old rusty
wood.
I thought of
how similar tables
would
move into the spaces
you'd let them occupy,
they'd reclaim their title
and
similar legs and spine
would stand
straight across a
plain, against
which you
set cards and
half empty bottles.
Things we leave
behind
take up portions of us,
cling to our skin
and make us
feel still within
and
this feeling won't
escape you soon
but I want you
to know that
you can
always trace your
mind around maps
of places that exist
only in memory,
you can
revisit them sometimes,
but you must bring
your defenses along.

I'd bend rules for you;
merge my morals and
desires in a plate,
tremors surfing
down my spine,
wishing I could
choose the
comfort of
righteousness over the
way your eyes flicker,
sending
stardust down your cheeks.

I'd set off forest fires,
burn
down whole cities,
as I come on steadier
and heavier into your home,
to
greet your fireplace
with my
embrace and
watch the light
I made
play itself on the walls,
as we
consumed more
than fire for
a night.

Sometimes
I wish you were
definite.
A constant, unwavering
silhouette of a future
I could run
to, with certainty
that after I make
it to the end of the
tunnel, you'd be
there with your
hands, reaching
for me, telling me, that
this is
all there is to it;
some people travel
around cities under
different names
and swim deeper
down trenches
to find this
but we
are absolute,
right now,
right here.

I look at the mahogany
and the
crystals lining
your table,
as I think that
we are perhaps,
a crack
in the roof of a house,
that only
allows
sunlight
and shields
itself
against snow.

Coming back was
yellow;
wickers of fire/
skies setting/
birds in cages
who have
forgotten
what their bodies
were meant to do/
walls in
cheap hotels that
smell like
ash and bleach
and consolation.

Leaving here was
red;
passion and desire
combusting
into air,
leaving a ring of smoke/
hope tucked into
back pockets/
inner linings and
fears woven thick
into cloaks & masks/
blood and roses/
humane and the harsh/
dresses that were
given away/
beginning again
because
nothing was holding you back.

Running felt like heaps of
green;
grass that grows too long/
sweaters never
bought/
trees never climbed/
Eden came crashing,
sending
the remains of things you
carried into air/
curtains in a home you didn't
decorate.

Living was puddles of
grey;
in betweens of order and chaos/
the parking line separating
the definitive from the infinite/
smudged after years of
toppling
over and standing
too close to the
borderline/
murky ink running/
black
isn't enough anymore/
your
certainty isn't
two dimensions but
blurry almost theres/
forgotten
memories/
Purity isn't white,
it's brown
and it cracks
and it
mends and shifts
form between hands
and isn't acknowledged.


The colors come seeping through,
potholes on old roads/
dirt paths /sirens/ bodies
unable to make sense of
new beginnings and
shared histories.

For the first time in my life,
I wish for darkness;
an ever ending pit of blinding
light that pushes me
further down
an abyss that I can't traverse.
I wish for blindness,
which stretches
my periphery and
pushes my vision
to test it's limits
across shadows
that refuse to play
alone on walls
and empty grounds.
I wish to be
swept aside into
the unknown and
be asked to
make sense
of the wavering
silhouettes that
my hands make
against the surface.
I want my body to
mask itself into a
star; with fury that
can burn galaxies
and brightness that
can blind you sightless.
If my life was a
constellation,
each day would mark
itself as a network of
unconnected
destinations,
making shapes
when I try to
put them together.

I remember having
a firm
grip over time
when I was younger.
I had a hold on it,
fingers clasped
around firmly,
as it changed form
in my palm,
slipping into nothing.

As time went by,
days started blurring
into weeks into
months into years, so
everyday felt like a
sloppy slur of infinity.
Time went fast,
as I tried to keep up,
ragged breathing and all.
A fire in my muscles
tugged itself with
confusion and reminiscence
and
Time became a friend
that I lost touch with
and distance/priorities/ schedules
took
up the spaces
between us, so that
I could
never hold a conversation
without a tinge
of perplex seeping
into my mind, reminding
me
how things have
changed and shifted shape
far too much
with routines and plans
that don't involve
each other.
So, I think of Time
with fondness, like a stint
that I knew
wouldn't last.


I push my
hands against a force that
pulls me towards it,
and I keep  trying
to pull away in my
youthful delusion.

You asked me if
I remembered your name,
and I missed the syllables and vowels
holding place,
pushing away space,
making a sound in
my mouth that resonated
with the word that I called you,
when you were
younger still
and wondrous.
I had forgotten
the shape my mouth
made when
it moved it's way
around the vowels
and
consonants that pulled
themselves together
across a tag and
I lost memory of how
your name came to me
in the dizziness
of sleep and exhaustion,
how it escaped
my lips in a mellow murmur,
as you plucked
a hazy goodbye out of it.
I thought of the last time
I said it out loud, the way
it felt in my mouth and the taste it left,
and how
you took away it's meaning and
made it sound forbidden.
So I told you that I didn't
remember the name
I used to say to steady myself,
inked to a piece of my skin,
I told you that I forgot the taste of it
in my mouth; sweet and sickly
and I told you that I had forgotten
it in many mouths since.
I plucked away the shrug from
your shoulders and wore it on mine
as you walked away, down a street
into someone else's car, as
I only said a familiar chant,
that made my lips quiver
with reminiscence; a soft tremble
for who I was.

Some of us are deleting
pictures and videos and
memories of people and
places and who we used
to be.
Others are trying to hold
on, gripping onto whatever
threads they can get a hold of,
trying to recover things and
conversations that were lost to
time and tragedy.
For the people trying to move on
and not be reminded of whatever
they had and all they've lost, I wish
you well and I hope you're
stronger than the things that coil
inside photo frames and secret
folders on unsuspecting screens.
For the ones who are trying to
remember, trying to find some
connection into pasts that
seem like someone else's;
out of a picture book or dusty
family albums of people you
don't recognise, I wish you luck
because to rediscover pasts that
have settled down quietly and
people who have moved on
to other lives is lonely and I
wish you courage, to someday
find what you're looking for,
so you too can join the rest of us
who are desperate to forget what
we know.