if i knew how to play
the guitar i would
write the sappiest love
songs for you
but sadly, darling, i am
musically impaired

if i knew how to paint
i would color
the most glorious sunsets
just for you
but sadly, darling, i am
artistically limited

if i knew how to sew
i would patch up
the torn seams
of your heart
but sadly, darling, i have no
idea how to use a needle

if i knew how to cook
i would make your
favorite desserts
to sweeten up your day
but sadly, darling, my
only specialty is burnt eggs

oh darling,
i am not good at many
things but if there is
one thing that i
can do well, oh my darling,
that is loving you.

You painted
a sunset in the back of my
throat, so that every time
we kissed, you could taste
something beautiful that
wasn't me.

I watch the house come down
like a vengeful wave crashing
against my barefoot shore.

I don't know if
I wore my grey shirt
or the blue one with checks.

I can't tell from the dust caking
my chest; beating loudly I
put my hand to it

as if searching for my heart
in the shirt pocket;
I fumble

and feel nothing there.
I'd kept a picture of you there
in the breastpocket of my grey shirt

close to my heart.
And not any more, but a familiar ache;
left are these buttons of your last touch

and your breath in these threads.
You don't know that once you breathed into the sky
it just wasn't yours to take away.

These notes were once
all addressed to you because
I always tried to
begin a sentence with something other than your name,
but my hands
only know how to write
about you.

The sun wakes after I have walked two hours just to trace the outline of your body.
My arms have purple fingerprints from all the times you grabbed me when I walked into your ghost.
A thousand suns used to fall from the tips of my fingers into your outstretched hands.
You would kiss me just to catch the cigarette smoke unfurling out of my mouth.
We used to play last card beneath a candle light and sitting in forts.
The colours of a hundred sun sets fell from your mouth when you looked at me.
Rainbows had formed in the back of your throat where you thought no one could find them, but I tasted them when your lips met mine.
My eyes have dark rings under them from all the sleepless nights you caused me.
You carved a hole in my chest and never replaced it.
You held me so tight all of my bones broke and every crack had your name inside.

The sun woke this morning and I wasn't tracing the outlines of your body.
I wasn't speaking volumes because your lips weren't touching mine, and that's the only time I feel safe enough to write a novel.
The sun rose and I was waist deep in the water, trying not to think about your face.
But the water made waves that carried your name right to me.