tell me what made your sides
brittle with doubt
what snapped your bones and broke your lungs
to murky waters, tell me, what it had to take to
save you, what it'd mean to ask for
help

dear ophelia, i've kept your rosemaries by the softest sun
your pansies, your rue and daisies still
keep their pigments
in the last page of your binded journal.

tonight I am cracking
in incremental movements

tonight I tread alleyways looking for
safe corners to drown in the dark
to let my stumbled
thoughts stumble to simplicity,
purity,
        tears, see
October is collapsing,
         October is collapsing but there is nothing left to catch

I've been staring
for so long at this picture of
you, and
I'm wondering
How it is that I can recognize so much and so little at once;
This glow from the screen makes things clearer in the dark
Yet here I am still squinting,
hunting for nostalgia and
the same hazy story,
drawing a certain reality
more tolerable than truth,
that more words were held and mulled
than vulnerably strewn,
that there will always
be so much left to learn
about you

i'm sick of being soft. tired of being the quiet, the delicate, the sensitive. do  not approach me for directions. give me canons. give me dynamite and fireworks. i'll balance that flame on my finger. i want that plum coloured lip. black bralettes under plush robes. six inch stilettos and a cig. ***** until i go numb. i don't care if the 3 am breeze raise goosebumbs, let me sleep on the pier if it means i get the whole night. i want to yell in conversation, argue with you until you cry. nobody will step on me. my hands are curled around kitchen knives. i want to luag h it off, laugh it off, laugh it off. i feel nothing, but somehow so, so alive-

Again again again
I look to you again-
this time laughing, this time
at the tip of the earth, where sand kisses sea-
with you and your rosy eyelids,
honey cheeks and hands intertwined
with mine
trying to balance

this time,
harmonizing thoughts and harmonizing gestures
we look at each other just as clearly
as the sun looks through the sea,

breathing lightly
salted hair and coral reefs,
tide pools, billowing sheets
I see your glow, I feel
your softness.

We're finally here.

There only ever seems to be misunderstandings
This week felt like honey and nostalgia
Mint and perfume,
clementines and violet lilacs
sublime, sublime, sublime
It reminds me of
Connection; the importance of engagement
The need for eye-contact and fits
of laughter
And just as quick as fortune visits
my sides brittle with doubt
for something I've forgotten
And our eyes glaze but
I take the steps back and
Huddle in relapse,
your thoughts perplexed- looking at the conversations we'd shared
just fourteen hours ago.