As his lips gently brush and kiss my blissfully closed eyelids, it's as if  he is slowly smoothing out every single laugh line and rumpled wrinkle.

He sees more of me in that one careless, dainty gesture.

Bare and only human.

I watch her meticulously strain the tea, patiently waiting for time to pass for it to "steep and infuse” which  I quote from her as those words escape her lips. And finally when its ready she announces it with such happiness, I cannot help but feel metaphorical little rays of sunshine kiss my skin.

And the irony is that the sky is painted black with the stars as a sprinkle of sparks. Its precisely one of the reasons I fell for her.  

I have said it before.

But I’ll say again, I can write it till the very ink bleeds across the yellowing pages.

I only ever wanted you to taste the sweetness of a white lie.
I guess,
my mind hopelessly wanted it to become the truth.

I write to breathe a l i t t le easier.

Black ink adorns the nook and cranny of my fingertips, hugging even harder upon once-blank pages.

I try to exhale out the thoughts of meaness, madness and spice from this warm body.

To keep a smidgin, a flutter of innocence from a different time & place.

Most importantly, those 10:51pm, 3:22am thoughts written onto paper is a nudge of a reminder: Sleep. Sleep better.

Sadness; this heavy thing begins to silt through my body.

Threatening to weigh me down.

Till my very heart is on the stone-cold ground.
Till *time itself sews itself into this space in my chest.

Pathetic, vulnerable fetal position twists my everywhere.

You can scoff, call me weak.

I dare you.

However,
say it when you feel the death of something so acutely.
- I refer to it as something as you don't lose someone.
They are very much alive in the memories.-    

The moments dusty and blurry at the edges.
The same ones that gently seam your eyelids every single night.

Compelling you to live in the dusty, yellowed past.
The choice becomes nothing but
yours.

But it isn't mine either.      

My stubborn heart still beats with something that is defined as life
but
doesn't
quite
feel like
                                                             i   t.

We had big dreams,
you and me.

You & I,
I mean.

Thing is, kid,
all of that lived and died
in
the backward
of
*time.

Today, it will slowly get better.
But, what do I do on those seemingly infinite string of time? From sunlight to dark to starry skies to complete darkness?

The forever between today and better.

How do I wait whilst my heart gets hollowed out by time itself?

There, I finally said it.

My words blindly wisp at the distilled silence.

His lips; a silent, unmoving line.

A tiny voice that does not quite sound like mine peeks out of an
e  m p t  y
s p a c e.
I knew it.

"What are we going to do with all that infinite time?"
He slowly says, as his fingertips flicks gently and draws an  ∞ on the inner corner of my wrist.

A little inward gasp widens my eyes,
a slight stirring of all my impervious places;
a wisp of an untitled something.

It's a wisp that my raw fingertips cannot touch just yet.
It is still terribly ribboned
by
the shards of time.

"Fine, I am going to make feel in such a way, you've never felt so acutely human."

My lips flicker with something very odd.
A ghost of smile slowly begins its
slow, slow dance.

Something lovely
tip-toes
into
the
creases of
my
heart.

"Oh, we have a little time."

An immeasurable number of tick-tocks.

It's enough to kiss your forehead and then the tip of your nose.

Repeated
twice.

It is the little gap of patient waiting for tea to steep
&
wisps of warmth to kiss your fingertips.

Enough time for nervousness to flicker in irises and shyness to tip-toe into crimson cheeks.

Oh, and sweets?
There is always time to whisper 'I love you'
on
the
cupid's bow
of
your
lips.

Always.

Glancing at the clock, which sees the hour hand finally resting at 12.

I sigh, time will enduringly wisp every fibre of your being into the next day.
No matter how magical the time was, it will slip through your outstretched fingertips.

Even if you grasp, pull or tear, you are most likely to hurt yourself beyond recognition.

You will be blinded from the blurring & vague finger paintings of the past and now.
Bloodied, cracked hands that will always fumble with shards of the past.

And it will happen again.
Once, twice and then indefinitely.

In those infinite string of moments, you only then realise.

Your heart only beats alive in the dusty backward of time.

(Thank you)
For giving people the strange,
seemingly entitled right to hurt me.
Truth is, the difference between you and I is that:
Yes, I hurt you.
At least I can be the only one to blame.
And it is only me that can stitch sorry
into wounds if needed.
But you let them say all the ***** words for my ears.
And that's the one of the saddest realizations.
You let them, with ease & sweet sympathy.

Tear this little piece on the dotted line or carelessly,
a shard of you.
Any part.

It will still be a piece of stardust; a wisp of the infinite universe anyway.

Nothing quite the same, never quite this close in our ten fingertips.

Give it to him,
to her,
half-senselessly
&
half with all your heart.

Of course, with a pinch of apprehension, a tickle of doubt,
a sip of shyness.          

We will invariably be torn, broken, tugged at.
As, we are always guilty of doing more.

Never less.

There.
You're imperfectly human.

I am not sure anymore.
I wonder if you ever thought of what I thinking right this moment.

Have you, sweetheart?
Because, if you have and still do,
please,
can I give you a
hug?

Sorry
plays its incessant note

&

fades like wisps of smoke.

Like

s
             *p  
                  i
                       l
                           t
                                wine

on this

dust-mote
kissed
floor.

Red,
than
g o n e.

Today, I found a silver of understanding.

It was hidden, blanketed and veiled
by
old,
o  d d
things.

My parted lips breathes the dust away.

Now, I know why they used to say,

Don't grow up too fast, you'll grow old anyway,

darling.

Could you perhaps kiss the snippets of pain

Here,                        
                          here,
There
Bye, please?

My soul cannot bear to let more pieces of itself to be lost.

So, let them get hopelessly tangled in the dips & cracks of your voice
saying
Go
                    od Bye.

I am not quite sure how to say goodbye.
A farewell.

How do you know how long to look in those eyes?
To know your heart is filled with enough 'them'.

How exactly do you crinkle a smile that says "I will come back."?

And most of all, how in the world do your lips utter those two words when there are tears at the back of your throat?

How do you wish the unspoken words you have yet to speak away?

Weak & numb
fingertips and wrists, I know how my back curls inwards when I cry.

Tense muscles knotted terribly, nearly as terrible as the words I wish to whisper into the cupid's bow of your mouth.

I am not breaking like glass or porcelain dinner plates, that I am well aware of.
We are all soft curves of muscle, skin, fat, blood, salt & rust. With fine wrinkles and lines mapping everywhere.

"Surely there is more than this."
There is something that hinges on her last word.
Ah, its
hope.
Misplaced, misguided thing.

"The universe is beautiful, yes?"
    She nods slowly.

My hand cups the side of her face, my fingertips lightly brushing her cheekbone.

"You plucked the stars speckling these skies
then dotting it onto
my fingertips,
then my wrists
and
the deepest oblivions in me."

If there is anything more than that.

We
          are all too    selfish    for
our own good.

We cry, in hope and in vain, that
all the inky blues, fiery reds, deep bruises of purples will weep out.

With her dewy cream and roses completion,

Eyes that you could wonder for all eternity for what they see and hold.  

Lips stained with the most alluring red.

Her thick hair is braided onto the side, wispy tendrils frame her face.

A crisp white three quarter sleeved shirt and faded blue jeans cuffed just above her dainty ankles.

Just when I thought a woman has never looked so stunning.

She smiles.

And suddenly time ebbs away, it doesn’t halt suddenly. Momentum of the earth just ceases.

This is when I truly and utterly have fallen for her.

And that realisation unpauses everything that has stopped.

You cannot stop the inevitable.
Oh and I don’t plan to.

Softly, unknowingly,
like the steam from these cups of hot coffee.
You languidly permeate through me.
Sweet & bitter
paints my little white heart
red.
With unbroken gazes, blind hands, shy fingertips,
our crimson cheeks
hues
over
winter-bitten
faces.

Truthfully,
I neither have a lucid nor clear recollection of how we first met.

How my little heart took its fall blindly,
with wisps of hope edging around it,
don't you dare ask.
I don't know myself.

It's that one moment hazy and crinkled at the edges,
but its the very one that we adore when
it plays peek-a-boo
on
rainy days.

It is the kaleidoscope of little memories ribboned together that slowly unravel,
and
begin
to
dance on your closed lids.

All I know is there is a

beginning

& and &
no
end.

Not just yet,
not
in
*forever.

Mirrors hold both truth and lies.

*Which one do you believe in?

"One, two... you?"
She pauses.

Eyes wide with meaning and unsaid thoughts.

"That's how in love I am with you."

I hope you know that.

"Oh I knew. I know."
From the first time, you uttered my name and held my hand.
I knew.
I know.
He whispered back.

Instead of trying to find the galaxies in someone's irises,
look up.
Right into the sky.

So, then, when you do find a star;
that proverbial twinkle
between
one's eyelashes,
****,
wouldn't you be sure?

We all go through life punctuated
by
*lies, loss & love.

The fact that
this b l a n k page
can be the next great love story

or

the gibberish
that
knots and unknots
your mind
scribbled and flicked
in ink.

Frankly,
the
infinite
∞
possibilities
are
*terrifying & wonderful.

I am quite sure, no,
I know you love me too.

And if you do walk away; your footsteps whispering good-bye to mine.

Just be careful.

My heart is right there on this dusty pavement.

Those moments where you feel like time and whatever makes up that infinite momentum is suspended.

The whispers and loud susurrations of the world fall into silence and that the only sounds that permeate your soul and ears are the breaths between you and I.

Yes, this is no exception.

Let us keep the vestige of the past,
Let the very dust settle on our cracked hearts,
Let the yellowing pages yellow.
Let time dissipate and gently kiss the flakes of us into
*nothing.

And with just one little word, or was it a few?

Warmth and balminess became ice & wisps of cold.
Laughs became little sobs; gasping for air for all the wrong reasons.

A
home
does
not
seem
quite
like
it.

It feels like unravelled ribbons.

Painted grey & blue hearts.

Tears on dinner plates.

Cold tea staining raw, chapped lips.

Your breaths merely touching your bare ribcage.

Empty, emptiness simply seep into your veins,
the spaces in your skin, then the ones in your heart
and
in the
very words
you
speak.

I cannot close
my
tired, tired
lids
over
it.

Heartbreaks are one of silence.

The Quietest.
It is when the edges of heart begin to splinter and crack under all those unspoken words that you dare not say.

It is the barely whispered wishes to starry skies that etches itself on your ribcage.
And my, etch themselves wordless they do.

How can something of fiction be so very real?
Please, tell me, how something so silent can deafen my ears.

But then again, you won't hear me.
You
cannot.