when you were five

remember how you thought words

were some of the most beautiful creations in the world

and you put exclamation marks behind everything

because your father said you used them for exciting things

and everything was exciting

and you never stopped talking

because everything was a melody

how you picked pages from the dictionary at random

and let the sounds slip and roll over your clumsy tongue

slide down your throat and taste them sweet against your lips

you promised yourself that growing up and adding years to your age

would never change anything-

but it did.

i watch you sometimes

buried in a heap of textbooks and assignments

the light seeping through the crack under your door till two in the morning

and i hear you curse the very existence of the same words

you once so revered

there is no meaning to

(or love for)

the letters you pen and the ink stains against snow white sheets

and i wish i could turn back time to see

the little child who thought the dictionary held wonders of the world

and gave more than monosyllabic answers to questions posed to them

heaven knows when the curiosity in your eyes died (and why i never noticed)

but god knows i would give up so much

to see it there,

again.

you came to me in the first dewdrops of spring
with the scent of newleaf lingering on your lips
and the taste of fresh rosebuds and honeysuckle
a mere whisper on my tongue
your kiss the heat of summer sunlight blistering against my skin
and ripping my throat open in a blaze of inferno
heaven knows how you quell the flames
with the same brush of lips against mine
you dance forever in my mind’s eye on dappled autumn leaves
with the swirl of the breeze tousling in your hair
a symphony of red yellow brown and glittering eyes
footsteps going crunch crunch crunch over the carpet of my heart
your goodbye is the wind that whips through my eternal winter
as the snow settles in the silent solstice
i crave crave crave crave the fervent heat once more just once more
REPEAT.
cyclic cyclic cyclic
as i fall in love with you all over again.
(like the mist that rolls in with the first snow that tumbles like waves from the sky/like the budding of the flowers in the garden and the fallen petals beneath your soles/like the gradual melt of ice cream onto sticky fingers and stained flip-flops/like the green fading into a myriad of blossoming colour the facade of beauty disguising slow death)
baby, you break my heart slow