I like your defiant voice.
It's like a breath of fresh air
in all the madness.
I don't know what you're trying to do,
but it's working.
You're such a hardass
but that one moment
of complete kindness
and care
and worry,
I could see it in your eyes.
And you reached out to touch me
then pulled away,
coming back to what actually is.

I'm sorry,
I don't remember your favourite colour.

I know I asked and,
I know you told me and,
  I know I forgot, almost instantaneously;
I'm sure you'd shrug it off,
say it's no big deal,
and, I suppose I might agree,
but
I'd hope that you'd find it meaningful,
that you'd changed mine.

for now, its:

the intervallic hues
of your delicately feathered iris,
blanketed
under starlit night skies,
glittering
by the sodium haze
  of cityscape lights,
and how transient happiness
set the soft outline of your cheek
  ablaze.

your freckles laid out,
like maps of constellations;
  distant pinpoints, strung up on high,
   ages old,
just waiting to fall, at a moment's notice.

the palette of the sweetness of your skin,
made brushstrokes, weaving into my dreams,
  becoming masterpieces, as
literature
rolls
  from your lips
    in dry-ice cloud
  sepia tones,
washing out black and white photographs
I'd hung up,
  in homemade picture frames,
throughout the corridors of my chest.

so,
I'm not sorry for that.

but,
I am sorry if I ever hurt you,
{I don't think I did}
I'm sorry if I'm an *******,
{though I seem to be the only one to think this}

and,
I'm sorry...

I'm sorry if I love you.

cloudy days
sunny days
both fine
in their own right

but to me
the sun is a bit blinding
i am most comforted
by clouds hanging overhead

i'd rather try all the doors
and find some locked
than miss the open ones
out of fear

sometimes i traipse around
fishing
for false love and compliments
avoiding sincerity

but even the ugliest people
can be full of pretty words

Noxious cold blinds,
his blood pulses and
the brain goes numb.
Panic fills the smoke-thick
atmosphere.

A "Who's there?" falls
before a silent response.
A clack under a thumb.
The musket metal gleams
like water in the moonlight.

A fire's scent drifts into his nostrils
as a steady beat of drums --
"war drums"
wiggle through the trees
into his electrified mind.

Moving forward,
the forest canopy transforms--
illuminated tangerine.
Sparks snap like upward
travelling orange muse.

Feathers dance
above the flames.
[war cries]
He retreats back
into the leafy abyss.