was it my fault?
that I fell in love with your dreams, your thoughts, your potential, and your cheeky painting that would hang in our living room?

because some times I have to wonder

was it yours?
When in those first few months, you showed me all the beautiful ways you can paint with colours. Diving headfirst into all the ways people can make you smile and fall in love. how you promised me the sky, the moon and the stars. But then, it felt like their weight, became crushing. And those promises became ‘for later’ and the way you told me you’d move anywhere, wasn’t really true. And Christmas of 2027 might’ve been ******* great. But does our dinning room table still look like that?

and I was left wondering if I changed, or you just didn’t really have the rope, to grab them all.

How can you hold some of my favourite memories
And make me cherish every piece of you
but then be shattered
by the man I knew you could be

I scrubbed or at least tried to
every layer of skin he touched or weirdly rubbed
scrapping my lips into the colour they used to be when you kissed me
and I sat in the bathtub
having scrapped my tongue to a lovely red
knowing it wouldn’t have happened if I was with you
but I’m not yours anymore, am i?

he told me I was beautiful
but you would’ve told me I was stunning
and I now
have to go on
knowing you’d call me stunning, while he
he only calls me beautiful

Lost in Translation never made sense to me before
I don’t know why it suddenly does now
like the silence and looks
clicked
why loneliness sometimes can be so busy
getting lost

It’s almost like dust settled.
routine suddenly happened after spontaneity ran out one morning to grab some milk.

and we're both pretending like it'll be right back

I like the way your name feels
dragged across the nape of my neck
leaving streaks of you to be remembered by

But I prefer the way you kiss me
down the embers of being
and the crease of my spine

for all the songs that speak of lovers bathed in the whispers of moonlight or wrapped in the sheets of sunshine
the glimpses of your eyes
will be whispered across generations
regarding that lover of mine

I want to touch you
like it was that first night
I want to hear your laugh
amongst the blurry images
I want to say it's totally okay
cause what does the future matter anyway?
but mostly
I want to pretend like you're not a fish
and I a bird
just waiting for the other to give out

to wake up
in agony because i was dreaming of you
and it didn't last longer
to smack into a pole
because their laugh sounded like yours
or on days like today
when pillows
feel like interlopers
where even in the shower
tears won't grace us with their presence
and
I can't even drink my scotch
because it reminds me of you

i wanted to be the one for you
not the one that got away

She told me he bought her silver jewelry for her birthday
and I felt like crying
because he didn’t ask her best friend
her sister
or her taste
and she had to sit through with smiles
simply excited for silver jewelry
while she wears gold.

But it wasn’t just jewelry, or cars, flowers, or jokes.
It wasn’t that hats, the stove, or the door.

she told me he bought her silver jewelry
so I sat there
realizing
that hadn’t happened to her before.

it is just
so exhausting
to finally put the masks on the table
only to realize
you have to put them back on
in a way that you can still tell it’s me
just
without seeing me

why does that half glass of red
taste so much sexier
when cuddled in bed
with a snoring floof
and a fresh set of sheets

it’s breathtaking
how love changes
growing and morphing and blossoming as we grow and morph ourselves
love goes from mums cooking to dads cocktails to friends hugs to lovers embraces
until it morphs
into 1:48am phone calls about which car soap because he always did it and I couldn’t find it anyway
and you realize soap was what mattered
Love changes
And it’s breathtaking

sometimes we must realize
that there’s a reason
lovers who sit beside each other
last longer
than those who do not
because
how can you hold the rope
together
when your constantly tugging against
the other?

Over margaritas
And FaceTime calls
She suddenly stopped
and said to me
he really is your ‘great love’
isn’t he?

You make me feel
Like the bottom of a wave
The richest of colours
The deepest of greens

you seek me out with careless abandon
or simply the determination of a knight
Unafraid to back down

from the little woman
Peeking around the willows
Dripping in her lake

You pause with awe and wonder
like you could see every moment that made this second, to get here, worth it


As a little grin traces my face
and I pull you in
and you sink
as I drag you under
blissfully
unaware

I love when I stumble across a
moment
where you know it’s one that will be encased in bubble wrap
Preserved with the jams and jellies
Coveted on the shelf
With all the good little memories I have with you
and the way your eyes crinkle when I laugh that particular way
so I smile
and remind myself to keep extra mason jars and bubble wrap
— just for such occasions

I wanted him
like a man drunk wants cake
not at all then suddenly starving

I needed him
against all reason
and every crash of the wave

I loved him
watching as then sun drifted into the horizon
Reaching for the moon

Only to miss it
And hopelessly

We both tried again

tonight is one of those nights
where the stars would’ve looked perfect waltzing across your back
As candlelight flickered on fingertips where kisses just passed
I want to hear every murmur and sigh
as you flick the strands over my shoulder
I know the whispers won’t stop till starlight tucks itself in
and our giggles and dreams echo till day breaks in

Please tell me why the scotch
Swirling around the glass
Stokes the fires in my soul
As it swirls playfully along my tongue
To incite the words brushing against the smoke as it leaves my breath

Till the glass is empty
and fires go cold

please
god please
come trace my collar with you lips and my freckles with you fingertips
because i miss the way you laughed along my neck
down that little indent in my palm
i want you to whisper to me
all we didn't get to say
as the night turns into the softest dawn

i don't know when
or why
but it changed

and it was in that heartbeat, in it's echoed refrain
i realized i would never feel like that again
about him.

and that was okay.

because the feel of my jeans grazing across his palms become better with repetition.
because the feel of his smile whisked my favourite lemon loaf into creation, filling itself with peace in this familiarity.
because the feel of his arms were not that of steel, but hearths; warming the depths of my being I did not know had gotten cold.

it would feel better

and that was okay.

in moments like this, i wonder
should i say thank you?
or scowl at my own tongue
because why must you be 'thanked'

for finding the beauty in the way a masterpiece i did not create became encased and enclosed around me? a heartbreaking masterpiece my soul hides behind.

but darling, really.

must i thank you?

dare I thank you for noticing

the way my hips flow like new streams
making their own path to once again embrace. finding themselves through pure instinct.

should i say thank you?

for seeing the same desire in me that Venus possessed in the arms of passion, the same ones lost to history we so seek to be held by?

or may i say thank you.

thank you for guiding me up the stairs that never end, winding along as I am, so that I may be, all that I am. Thank you for blindly reaching into the dark and choosing to love all that you touch...

even Eros would have loved you.

As your willful blindness and seeking touch brought me to the final step, so that I may say

thank you.

I am sick of this
beige
of the way it sits against my chest
so that I cannot feel
too much
or even too little

I would tell time to come here so that I may dine her, in hopes to speed up the process. but she is late for our dinner once more.

And so I sit, holding a beige cup, with a beige sweater, in a beige room. Hoping it’ll ever turn transparent, so I may start again.

we lost you
and part of me still doesn’t know that
but when I cried
speaking to him about how nothing will be the same and you’ll never get to hold little laughter and wipe little tears away
clinging to birthdays and little voices
he told me
that my hands
are extensions of you
so you will hold it all
the packages, the smiles, the screams, and the giggles.

and it made me smile—

thinking of the day you get to hold my Theo, with me.

when we try to compare strength
in the moments of silence
and in screams

I feel we miss the point

he whispered
and it echoed across the hall
down my knees
across the teacups and the bookshelf
it rang along my bones
Beating against my ears

Till it rang empty
against the window panes
As they shuddered
after the close

there aren’t words
and golf clubs don’t hit hard enough
because at the end of the day
you won’t ever get to hold my Elizabeth or my Theodore
and I still don’t know
If I’m mad at
or simply for you
because you said we’d get to laugh at the way a white dress would twirl round as **** jokes were said and tears were shed
But instead
I just miss you

I wish for you to love me
against the hollows an the bones
I need for you to love me
so I can be whole once more

she sways to the beat of the drum
picking up speed
Feeling the spice and the ***

You wake up and realize with ache on your tongue
it was a night to remember
she could’ve been the one

I wish more people talked about
the paradise
to be found wrapped in the arms of a lover
embraced by the warmth of sunshine
and caressed by an afternoon of snuggles

A man of many talents
walked through my door
God I hope he walks through once more

Fetch my love
Please bring it round the bend
Sometimes it gets lost, every now and again
Tell it to me slow
Just this once more
Fetch me my love
Ah,
she shan’t be taken no more

Say it to me again
he crooned
as If the soul swallows me whole
and the floor becomes the hearth
to cook the language back to me

someone told me it was fate
that your name was the echo to
my tangled daisy chain dreams
so I laughed
nodding along like your name wasn’t seared into my every atom
every fixture, ligament, lung
nodding along like the second I saw your face
Every other flower became obsolete
no longer wanting roses
But daisy chain dreams

why must we chose
to pick up the shield
of weighted fear and cemented caution
caged in what if laced around comfort
or
to wield the open palm
where everything could land
and rest in a cozy embrace
or be brushed away
with nothing but a whisper

it was simply
silent
Something never before touched
hearing the pitter without echoes on your skin
but not deafening
without millions of howls
not crippling
without thousands of demands
it was simply
walks along the sand with nothing to hear
but his heartbeat
and my own
except I was doing laundry
and the waves were simply constructed

I would say ecstasy but that’s the wrong prescription

my darling, tell me
did you think your dismissal of my devotion would create the landslide of consciousness that would sweep me under?
did you honestly think, my endearing Peitho
that i would stumble?
like a drunk lost in memories of the past
drowning in the waters of murky dreams and empty promises
clawing and clammering to the foot of your obsidian base
to ask for tuppenece of your abject admiration

did you think i uttered 'too soon' under my breath when you walked through the doors in a Kermes gown to be the muse to all
beckoning the second movement of a symphony
drawing your audience in
that such suitors could claim you with mere words
before unleashing your cacophony of destruction
like you did for Cassandra

while you may have, incarnadine Peitho
the adoration of all
those that caught the taste of crimson across their tongue
when their drunken hands where so foundly engraved by your obsdian base
marred beyond admiration
knows what your persuasion
tastes like

What is more torturous than knowing the art
seeing the velvet lust filled crimson
The midnight where she touched your hand blue
And resting without movement
Because you couldn’t pick the right medium

Would you have waited for me
As I, you?
Did your ears ***** at the sweet mention of consonants that had kinship with your name
or could you have sat
as moonlight and daylight became distant revelations
becoming heresy that no longer changed how you wrote your name on the small of my back
Did you think
I would forget the smell of bourbon on your lips
chasing away the steel in your tone
No.
You wouldn’t have

etched across the stratigraphy of grief in those mountains of dread and valleys of sorrow
I waited for you
Building a home by the lakes of regret
Hoping they wouldn’t wash away
What I hoped to build with you

Did you want her to look like me?
Or we’re you just wanting something that was
comfortable

and just like that
the world clicks sometimes
and the most beautiful humans can transcend to the most horrifying figures
producing nightmares that should not exist
that render the shadows begging for the whispers of flame
but sometimes
out of the shadows
under echoes of hymnals
lays the softest silence
extending refrains
of the purest silk
that even the sirens, they could not replicate

It is in these moments
Where I go reaching through the blundering moonlight  
That my soul shatters
Letting my mind rage
As it meets fistfuls of pillows
And shudders of stale air

When I can tell you are not there
And will not be before the sun rises
And my hear beat quiets

So I find fingers
Still reaching through sun drenched daylight

But would you burn for me
like i burned for you
or could you only smoke
so everyone thought we had wildfires
but it was only me being razed to the ground
while you stand there

ready to smoke for another

it was the sea And it’s uncanny ability
To wash you into me
So that
The particles of I met the particles of you

I wonder what his thoughts were
when he made the decision to look back to check
was it out of concern
or curiousity?
Was it an unconscious look?
Or simply a moment to defy Hades?
I want to know what the music sounded like
Was it light
Or heavy
Purple or crimson or a periwinkle blue?

Did she wail or make no noise?
Did you?

Did you reach out to touch her
Or needed to see what the texture of her fingertips were connected to?

Or did she, lovely Orpheus, call out to you?

while the pitter patter draws out
Slowly
as if on a classic music box
I wait for the notes to be struck
Where I hear the door open
Lights flicking with shoes scuffing
But the pitter patter continues
without pause
and I’m left
waiting for notes that were not created
for you to walk in the door