you were that second sunrise of this new beginning
you were the time I believed again that I could be winning

we would wake together and we did not sleep apart
and I contemplated whether I was giving you my heart
when you told me words professed never before spoken
and soft sentiment I tried to bury was once more awoken

but you also kept secrets and you recycled your words
and whispered them sweetly in the ears of other birds,
you played the puppeteer, how you loved those sticks
but I've met other magicians and I've seen all their tricks

you loved me (and the others) that you failed to contest
yes but oh, it was me that you loved best?

I am not sorry to have told you that that was uninspired
I've had our moment, true I enjoyed being desired
but this effigy of love you staunchly kept constructing
had flawed foundations your pleasure was deducting.

So this is the truest goodbye that I never did say
what do we live for but love? Yours went astray.

he looked to you
for once telling me the truth
I realise I knew.

you washed the salt out of my eyes
you stomped your feet, refused goodbyes
you burned my books when I tried to write
and set up traps to catch me in the night

I followed your steps up to the cliff
and tried to recall how it felt to live
before this cage of you that I elated
when this infinity could not be sated

So many steps seen from where I stood
so much bad diminished so much good
and those lies were always easier to tell
before that mention of where he fell

A push that was but kinetic emotion
who cried the tears, formed the ocean?
Your own were dried long before this last
and your steps have penned me in the past.

you said you could hold the sun in your fist
and call nightingales when you were ******
that all the deceptions made it easier to trust
and you could see the stars leaking dust

you pulled out sections of your hair
raked your scalp, saying life was fair
and sank your teeth into my arm
saying it wouldn't cause me any harm

you broke the dish and crowed it fate
sent words forth to muddy the slate
and when I cried and begged for less
you told me I was a reckless mess

you carved up pieces, embraced the floor
told me I should have dreamt of more
I dried my tears and latched the gate
your truth whispered, it's far too late

you were the artist, painting colours on skin
sang words of love, such sweet impeccable sin
and some days I can't find where they end and I begin
despite escaping I still cradle you within.

I spent a night with Mandy, our smiles
quaking lips and arms around strangers as
the darkness receded and the stars couldn't be
seen but they could be felt; sound itself visible
in the vibrations of glass and the heady movements
of living and your taste tripping upon my tongue.

Tonight Mandy has left me, smiles
borrowed now a debt to be paid as dusk
approaches. I miss you; my arms ache
to remember holding your body
years past as you came back down
from the music in the stars of the sky
and I was there to laugh and
dry tears and force the darkness to recede.

True I am not one for declarations or discussing emotions,
if I keep you around then that's enough of a notion
that yes, perhaps I will fall to love you, one day in the
future, not right now is true. I will never willingly
admit to being the fallen, more likely to distance
and cautiously move on then risk the words slipping
from my tongue to yours, as we kiss on dark corners
and leave late night bars. How many times has happiness
skipped me by? Living so opaquely and lying with my
eyes, as you take my lips but never do take my hands, I
could love you, dear J, but I'm too scared to stand.

This image you project is one I cannot pierce, I do not know
if you feel when I am in tears, whilst you do not know that
that yes they have fallen for you, our bodies make such awful love
that our minds are askew, tied to decimations old lovers cast,
for it seems two stones do not make a love that can last.

I keep watching other people living
and wondering how I can keep up with
each showcase, another step behind
and my legs are too short and eyes too
tired and I can't make my hair shine like
you do or be happy like he is or have
a dozen friends in undiscovered places
like she always has, nor have I ever done
anything that is actually anything on his scale and
to be content merely moving is apparently
never enough, I need to push forward, become
someone and do something that dulls
everyone else's shine
because apparently that is living and that is life
and it's only real when everyone else can see it.