The world around me is unknown. The
swirled images, harsh stone,  blue eyes,
skyscapes, confused sunsets.
Each whispered word, each empty touch.

If the moon shone just as bright,
what would be the sake of the beauty of the sunrise?
If the stars could fill the void,

why would the sun bother rising?
Why would clouds cover horizons?

when all I want is it to stop,
to still, to stunt, to sigh, to breathe
to be. But the world spins faster,

and I blink through a clouded haze
at the calm of now, the facts,
the brink of crowded days.

I think about your old haircut and
I miss muddy torn up shoes;
scuffed canvas, stained laces.
The tote-bag with a badge patchwork
forgotten in your house, now an identically
rigid, faux-leather
handbag. Homogeneous.

Your eyes narrow when I laugh too
hard, at something we used to like. You
wince and turn away,
behind your freshly highlighted hair.
You cut off the last of the
colour you'd begged for. You tell
me you never cared for the
things we used to love, so
I shut my mouth
and grapple with your change.

I wrote you a letter, handwritten and
hand folded, in tea-stained paper
and ****** red ink,
my heart displayed for you. You pinned it
up against your mirror. Sun bleached
and binned. The text message you
returned to me deleted itself last year.

I think about the rips in your tights
and the dirt under your fingernails
and search;
but find manicured perfection masking
any remains. I paint my nails and
mourn the friendship
we had, while you sit down and smile
beside me each morning.
You've polished your gemstones
into mirrors.

Why are you so desperate to ****
the girls we used to be?

With acrylic I paint the crumbs on my plate,
the dregs of my drained coffee mug,
the torn and crumpled tissue beside it.
The best cup of coffee ive ever had,
the perfectly buttery toast, still warm,
reduced to traces, ugly remains.
I paint a sad still-life to remember,
with hindsight clouded eyes
the flavours I couldn't taste
before they touched my tongue.

The mirror shines an echo of reality
a thousand times blurrier than I see.
The white lies praise closure, toxic autobiography,
as wax eyes glaze over, magnetic abnormality.

Painted mouth, a harsh sculpted shape.
Torn plastic hair, a blocked-off escape.
Between the fluorescence and the silver reply
the fruits of my labour or a sordid
fruit fly?

The scars on my shoulders, the spots on my face;
saturated colours polluting the lace.
Rouge tinted balm, a turned sickly ochre,
My elbows together so my chest looks fuller,
shoulders narrower, triangular figure;
carved by an egoist, all angles and fissures.

The moisturiser refuses to sink into my skin,
a tantaliser of trial, on the surface, a swim.
Impenetrable, inaccessible, my hands rip the surface.
A false doll face with a fast fading purpose.

But I think to myself now,
on these many auburn nights,
a year passed,
How lucky I am to have something
to miss amidst the fleeting
haze of life.

A photo I took three summers
ago; a boat immortalised behind glass.
It had reminded me of the careful details
and perfect colours, delicate strings
strung tall into ropes, pen barrels
into hard iron pipes.
  
The photo I took, buried under years,
a drop colliding with the sea,
indistinguishable.
The image is flooded with the fact
that it was never seen as I had intended.

Three summers ago, I looked at it,
and thought of him.
Though it was never shown,
it sits, buried.
Because, this winter, I look at it and
think of him.

How lucky am I, to have loved and lost?
How lucky I am, to have loved.