Sometimes I go into the city at night
alone.
Let the pavement trace the way without breaks,
get lost under the blue lights.
I go to the places we used to
and sometimes get a little drunk –
I don’t want to remember
but I have gravitated to these places
so maybe I should just honour
my cravings for you –
the sickly-sweet syrup
of your spit,
the saffron, sticky honey of your eyes.
We used to
do the same
together
as I am now doing alone –
let the concrete slabs
pave the way
without breaks;
going nowhere
and everywhere
all at once.

i did always say that perms don’t make good poetry; especially yours because honestly most of the time it was vaguely flat and misshapen. then again that was one of the first things you said to me; ‘in defence of the perm’.

that and a self-inflicted proclamation regarding your narcissistic disposition, so really all the signs were there; it could be compared rather dramatically to a romanticised act of self-harm.

as in, you didn’t really want to be loved or fixed but that didn’t stop me from trying; as in, part of me thought that by stitching up your wounds and healing your scars i could also fix myself.
                                           self-sabotage of the highest degree.
getting tangled up in someone else’s string is a dangerous affair, rarely do you ask permission; you throw yourself into their mess in the tangibly desperate hope that two negatives might make a positive.

that, in between all of the crying and pills and messy ******* filled nights; between the hazy afternoons wrapped up in borrowed sheets and sweat. that somewhere deep within it all there would be a flash of mutual comfort and understanding.

the kind of “let’s be a mess together and try and fix it all” thing that only actually exists in coming of age movies surrounded by cigarette smoke and electric house parties.

it’s a terrifying and debilitating thing to fall in love with the idea of what could have been; their potential. people don’t fall for the extremes and absolutes; they fall in love with the details,

           we lose ourselves and find each other in the details.

you will fall for the way he always licks his bottom lip slightly before he kisses you or the way he is so painfully cynical and innocently hopeful all at once.

it’ll be the small circles he’ll trace along the back of your hand with his thumb and the way that you’ll know you’re getting in too deep but will feel powerless in the face of it all.
so, you lie back like the pavement is sand and he is the waves that crash mercilessly down on you again and again and again.
the tide will change but the bruising will never stop,
his touch,
     his words will never be soft enough, at least not for you.

the next girl that tries; i wish you luck and i promise it’ll be worth it because maybe
perms do make alright poetry after all.

Imagine.
You.
Young in love.
Nothing to lose
but your heart.
That's how tragedies start.