You're sitting wired up.
The white coat shifts past you and
beep

all the hairs on your arms stand to attention.
It's only the machine reacting
to your quickening heartbeat.
               Surely there’s no need, sweetheart?
Name? (only a preliminary) You reply.


              It’s a start, I suppose.
Pen across paper,
a biting silence as you squirm.  
Is it uncomfortable, being watched? Waiting?
               Darling, why the damp forehead?

Beep
Beep
Beep

Your mouth twitches at the sting of words
as you try to swallow the lies
like cyanide.

If I could remember that first kiss,
I would always be reliving it

Veiled
by absinthe.
The ethanol already eroding the memory.

I would remember
The way your teeth tugged at my bottom lip
Inching me in.
Your hands, around my waist,
And your tongue cradling my fingers
When it wasn’t stroking mine.

We awoke the next morning,
bodies curving like a jigsaw.
My hair was dishevelled; yours, the same as always.
It was early,
all I wanted was to entwine my arms around you.
But the rest of the partygoers could see.
  
Our shield had evaporated
with the night
the memory.
All that remained was a hesitant dawn.

I don’t want to talk
about books anymore.
You favour a misty fantasy to the drudge of reality -
             I know.

But I’m tired of fiction.
My bed is littered with it;
epic tales of
other lovers,
bowing with the weight of a thousand
a hundred thousand
lies.

Our talks on metre and rhyme have grown stale.
When will my melody, my enjambment
satisfy you?
Without the need for irksome words.
I want your lips to decipher mine –
                No, I don’t want a pen.

I don't want whispered sonnets
or soliloquies any more.
Shakespeare shouldn't shape your mouth.  
I want your breath,
not the remnants of his.
A kiss mustn't go in brackets, render words redundant.
                    Shh, no more.

Oh I can not find the strength to edit us.
Over and over.
I want original. I want harsh truth.
And I want you to love it.

I don’t want another paper romance.