Almost;
The way he looks at her;
Why I cannot fall in love with you;
I’ll cry you a sand dune;
A cigarette’s scar;
Girls love boys;
Girls love girls;
Paranoia and emptiness – the things in which we trust;
Therapy;
The things that are not real;
My girl’s best ex;
A piano key’s symphony;
A warning for my lover;
An addict’s guide to life;
The ways I bleed now;
A permanent smile.

The stress of each syllable,
Soft stutters, a slip and a smile.

With effortless grace and fluency,
Your tongue arcs
And curls,
Meeting your lips briefly; parting again,
And so it goes
Lapping shores I know the taste of.

You read meanings into lines that weren’t yours;
I was lost in your translations.

Why must your youness be so
Impeccably imperfect,
That I cannot write you justice;
Cannot conjure even a shell of you.

Ever the joker you dance
At the edges of my vision;
Remain uncapturable yet unforgettable,
As I feverishly, fervently fail to
Sketch the shape of you.
My love,
I would slit my wrists with a ballpoint pen,
If only the ink ran a truer colour of you.

Rivers stain paper and corners curl crisp;
My pen runs dry over and over.

**** baby,
I’m Having another episode,
Will you watch it with me?
My track won’t stop skipping;
Siren won’t stop screaming,
As the song drones on and on and on
And on in screeches of violent pitches

I am reminded that the witches’ words ring true
As I dance with the devil;

I guess it does take two to tango.

My love,
You wove words into wool;
A spider, you strung sentences into works of art;
While I, blind and blundering,
Tried to find solace in the stitching;
Thread webs into safety nets.
Yet there was perhaps a fatal flaw I forgot to mention:
I don’t know how to weave,
And I’m really ******* scared of spiders,
And time, and loss and love and you and me and most other things.
(But mostly spiders - like heart-stopping-body-spasming scared)

So, my pretty Baby blue,
I wish you and I, a doomed arachnophobe,
Could exist between the lines of love poems,
Could spend mornings in bed with tea from our favourite mugs,
Could spend nights walking home from our favourite pubs,
Could be everything I wished for us.
But life catches on and time catches up,
So for now I’ll dip my tongue in sugared coatings,
And try to lick your wounds clean.
I’ll etch your voice into vinyl, and put your track on repeat,
An album of day-to-day complaints;
Awkward stories; and the reasons you’re always right.
I’ll sit content, and sway to the rhythm of your tune,
And watch you, my friend, my baby blue,
Move, and bloom, to the unique beat of you.
And maybe you in turn, if you wouldn’t mind of course,
Could teach me not to run from spiders,
Like I always seem to do

'I can read you like a book'

Can you read me like a book?
Because if you can,
I must be written in Latin;
Some long-lost language you do not speak.
Or perhaps -
You are holding upside-down;
The wrong-way-round;
Or back-to-front.

Am I made of paper?
Is my skin a composition of wood-pulp,
Rice, and cotton?
Do you see my history
Running across collar-bones?
My thoughts printed over elbow;
Emotions scrawled upon my stomach?

No.
I have a spine.
Yes.
But that does not make me a novel,
Nor your novelty.
You cannot pick me up from the shelf
For light holiday-reading,
I am not here to excite your imagination;
I am not here for your entertainment.
My life is not fiction;
My future not fact;

So, do not say you can read me like a book,
Because books don’t have lungs or mouths or hands,
Books do not grow with the years they withstand.
But I do and I will.

I am not a saint and neither are you.
So what are we to do -
But sit back and
Watch the same suspects;
Sit in self-pity,
Sick to their stomachs;
With own-grown notions;
Of a love so cavity-sweet.
A rotten romance
Written by children -
Drags us all to the dentist.

As it takes centre stage;
We act it out together.
Watch as they gorge themselves
Fat on the falsity;
Stuck in a daze of how they
Ought to be;
Of how they'll never be.

And the hope heals the heat of it.
Softens the sting of it -
Like milk;
But like milk that sits stagnant;
It'll slowly turn sour.
Watch as the older ones choke on it.
Swig back and cough up the chunks in it.
Self-hatred never settled well.

Look,
Look but don't touch.
People like us are too rough;
For the people of painted porcelain.
Fairy-tale spines are feeble;
Paper hearts and scripted stories
Smolder in the heat of us;
Fold with the weight of us.

And I will never understand,
Why delusions rule reality?
Why broken hearts are promised
to teenage dreamers?
Why mad in love is the golden rule?
Surely, insanity only drives you to a hospital?
I can't go back down that road.
I want to be sane in love;
The same in love;
Or not in love.
After all,
What's wrong with a little *** and sanity?

So, We are not saints;
And I don't believe in god.
I don't need your love story.
Baby don't lie to me;
Heaven isn't here for the finding;
**** fake fantasies;
Let's make our own masterpiece;
Just paint my skin with your lips
with my lips on your skin;
before we fall asleep.

I hung your heart
With your coat by the door,
You can have it back;
When you leave in the morning.

-HCS