You bring me hot. hot. heat.
In a cold. cold. world.

I am asleep
I am dreaming
I am 60 years old and huddled into a rocking chair
I am cold and bitter

I am awake and I am afraid

The next day I dream of the same cottage in the woods
But tonight
I am sat next to the figure of a woman not much younger
We sit with hands clasped tightly, rings touching
We talk softly about all of the memories we’ve had over the years
We sit together, warm and happy

I can’t see her face from where I’m stood

She turns and says
‘baby we need to paint these walls something brighter’
She looks a lot like you
She has your hair but it has gotten thinner and grey has been weaved into your colour
She has your smile too. it always my favourite thing about you

they say i was born with a silver spoon
in my mouth
until it was used to melt down nasty habits by noon
shot into veins

one day
i will learnt to forgive
it’s definitely won’t be today
but one day
the bitterness that bubbles within me,
the bitterness that grasps at my throat and strangles every last breath from me,
that bitterness will be destroyed
i will replace it all with glitter and sunshine and everything you gave to her instead of me

we were fire
burning up just like the feeling your touch gave me
we were death valley

and then

we were warm
the kind of warm from a funfair hot chocolate
we weren’t just lust anymore

and now

we are cold
the cold from bitter winds in december
we are ice on the road

but

the coldest of weathers will warm
maybe they just need some time
maybe we just need some time

here is your invitation to fill my mind full of prettier pictures. it is an offer to cloud my mind with thirty fuzzy feelings about the way you look at me. it’s a request for you to set my skin alight as our bodies touch. if you accept such propositions i vow to love you in a way that angels would envy. it is my promise to kiss you softly in the rain just how you like.

so keep my
Name
out of your mouth

swallow your words and sit back down

tell me you love me
and i’ll feign ignorance
to the fingers crossed under the table

hold my hand tight
and i’ll push away thoughts
of her doing the same to you

whisper pretty things to me
and i’ll forget the way
i glanced upon the same words in texts to girls that are not me

today my eyes took in wonders:
oceans,
mountains,
cities from miles above

and still

your face was the only thing that danced a whirlwind around my mind

i lost a part of my soul
as your blood ran cold
it was the part i had given you months before
laced within tender messages
i know i’ll never retrieve the fragments of my mind
ones that i could only bare to you
but
i’m at peace with that
because
i know you’re keeping me safe from where you watch

rip open my chest and tear out my heart
crush it between your rough fingers
break me like you always do

and then
when youve destroyed me enough

use my blood to write upon a gift basket card
scrawl our languid apologies and hollow promises

and then

allow me to fall back into your arms and repeat this cycle because i am nothing without the way you break me