when I stand in
the late-morning sun
I wonder if you're also
soaking up the sunshine
where you are

when he holds out a hand
it's unthinking, the way
you reach out for him
you were both laughing and loving
sprinting towards the light
running from the world

when you're together,
all those fleeting eternities,
everything becomes possible

tufts of light hair
fell into your eyes
swept over your years

now you're reaching up
feeling the short strands,
the bashful pride

you lean against the rail
the night air is blowing
and you're breathing in the hurt

the memories are flooding
and you're running so fast
feet pounding on the sidewalk

your jacket ***** in the wind
brushing the reasons away
taking all the words with you

your voice flows like
warm honey, smoothing
all the pain away
other times it has
lemon undertones,
an elusive something on
the tip of your tongue

I write you in angsty lines
wild moments
untouched spaces
raucous instants

I try so hard to write you
out of that crack-ed box
out of perceived notions
out of you in real life
out of this universe

but the truth is

there was never any box
and you were the universe yourself
there were so many more edges to you
sides and shades and depths
that I could never grasp

you are insane and beautiful
and genius and narcissistic and
everything I could want to be
nothing I could hope to be

You once said no one on earth
was sane, and there were people
who weren't fully crazy,
but none that were not
and I saved your words
on my desktop, thinking you had
the world figured out

But as I read your social media
at midnight and on tired afternoons
I realize you are only just
learning life like the rest of us

and we all stumbled through
with scraped knees and tear stains
the only difference was
when the waves receded,
you emerged like a king

The one thing I want the most
is to un-love you
yet the one thing I'm terrified of
is that gingerly, in degrees
then all of a sudden

all of a sudden

everything will evanesce
like the slanting rain
the hearts i draw
on fogged-up glass
faint pencil lines
on whitewashed stairs
crushed paper stars
i used to fold, alone,
with you

and i will be left
with the frightful emptiness
and i will be left
to fight my dependency on you
and i will be left

(we're locking eyes today and I have something to tell you)

*Don't Leave Me

I have your (our) CD on my walkman
It's playing
all our fears and regrets
all our promises and dreams
It's playing the past
before people left
before we left
before everything
started to change.

I fell in love with a dancer
all angled jawline and pure ***
He took my body and turned it into
a puppet for his dance in the spotlight

I fell in love with a musician
all slender fingers and carefree spirit
He took my heart and plucked at my
heartstrings so intense they twanged and snapped

I fell in love with an artist
all paint smears and wild imagination
He took my soul and painted pretty pictures
that stayed black and white because he forgot my colours

I fell in love with you
(you were all of those things
yet you were none of those)
and I had nothing left to give
but maybe that's how you like me
broken, scribbled-on, empty shell of me

He was the Weekender Boy
with lips that tasted like salty sea caramel
on lovely Saturday mornings
and caresses that felt like soft warm sunbeams
on lazy Sunday afternoons

Mondays she sat behind him in lecture halls
watching the back of his black-haired head
as he flirted in the front row seats

Tuesdays were him walking past her bench
pinning her in place with those glacier blue eyes
that always turned away to porcelain redheaded dates

Wednesdays it was his calls that came at 3:05AM without fail
and she'd listen patiently to his drunken rants and giggles
that sometimes ended in tears and incoherent apologies

Thursdays he exhaled alcohol breaths one-two-three-four
while laying her down across his green vintage car hood
gentle as she moved lithe and languorous beneath him

Fridays they broke dorm rules and shared a room at night
they stayed up over beer and banana milk
and at sunrise she'd wake up in his arms to his smiling eyes

He was the Weekender Boy,
and she was the only girl who ever owned him on weekends.

You always talked about
how it wasn't fair
I burst into your life
and made you fall for me
without a safety suspension

The way I crashed your defences
simply with my mocha eyes
and disarming smile when you
never let anyone else in
wasn't very fair too

And the unfairest of them all
was when I lodged myself
in your heart without meaning to
and gave myself the power to
right your world, or destroy you

So now I suppose you'd say it's fair
because you trapped me the same way
and cut off my exit routes but
left yourself with one
which you took, eventually.

It's been, what, 5 years?

The 1st year, I hid in my room
with depression devouring me

The 2nd year, I broke so many phones
trying to reach you, but you never picked up

The 3rd year, I started pretending you never left
I beat up anyone who tried to convince me otherwise

The 4th year, and I thought learning you would bring you back
Midnights had me studying Chinese, and I didn't care if I got heartburn
eating the spicy tofu you liked so much when you were here

The 5th year, I kind of realised you weren't coming back

But then, somewhere around autumn, you called and with that
horribly familiar accented Korean, you asked to meet.
I should have said no, shouted in your ear, swore at you with all the curses I used to teach you, slammed the phone on you.
I should have done all of those things,
but I didn't.

"So how's it been all these years?"
This is going all wrong, I shouldn't look so excited
I shouldn't be smiling like I'm looking at my favourite person in the world
And you make it sound so simple. "I'm great, thanks."
I guess you'll never know about the hunger strikes,
or the crying,
or the self-harm.

Now everything's falling into place.
We talk and laugh over soju,
and we watch variety shows with me in them,
and dramas and movies with you in them,
and it's like you never left.
Only I can't quite erase the 5 years,
but it seems as if you already have.
It's okay, I don't mind.
(actually, *******)
I love you.

He brushes lips of chapped silver
against her eager waiting ears
words dipped in warm honey gold
weave through the still morning air into
pretty distractions and buttercup dreams

She’s falling falling f a l l i n g
into those alluring violet eyes
they make for the perfect Solemn and
Earnest when he wants them to be
spinning seductive stardusted half-promises

The gossamer sunlight glints off
his aquamarine hair, and it’s like
like winter’s breath crystallized on the ends
of those beautiful blue strands;
they snare her in their breathtaking tangles

She’s almost asking to be bound
so he complies with those
clever ivory fingers on smooth piano keys
as rich chocolate swirls of his music enfold,
intoxicating-saccharine like whisky truffles

As he reaches out to draw her close,
the world soars in a myriad of colours.