How long will this last?

This lingering smell of laundry soap
The smell of you sunk into the fibres of this shirt
This last vestige of our tumultuous year
The sum of which I cannot add up
This lacklustre subsistence
The caricature of life conjured up

How long can this last?

This finite amount of breath
The particles of you fading with each inhalation
This fruitless clutching on
The grooves already worn flat
This constant disquiet of the mind
The echoes reverberating

How long - ?

*Nothing lasts forever

Just give me this
Last moment with you
As you snore and grind your teeth
Even though this should be rose-hued.

Just give me this
Chance to hold you close
To breathe in you and me
Before the sunlight shows
A final time to feel security.

Just give me this
Time to reconcile myself
Because I won't know what to do
After this night wears off.

Just give me this
For I have never asked much
Only that you try
So please don't begrudge
Me, this last goodbye.

In your heart.
On your mind.**

Such incorporeal metaphors
It's inconceivable the weight
Of which they cause

If one were such a phantom
Why couldn't they be exorcised
As needs willed them

Because I only want to keep you
Whom over all my bleakness
Have staged a coup

the voices around you grow to a roar
a crescendo of celebration and excitement
the heat from everyone surrounds you
a blanket of sweat and musk
the fireworks in the sky keep exploding
a breathtaking show of glittery brilliance
the weight in your heart sits
a sisyphus boulder that never seems to go away


*you're standing amidst the countdown crowd right at the city centre with all these overjoyed and possibly drunk people, the cheers erupt with each fresh firework blossoming yet in this humid climate all you feel is the wind blowing, the chilling pinpricks of a light drizzle. you remember how you love fireworks- their spark and the heart-in-mouth explosions and it all turns to dust in you because you can't find any joy in them now. lately it seems like all you have is dust.

It's been years since I've written
Sat down and gave shape
To the words that would come unbidden

I don't have the time
I'm not doing this right
I can't rhyme
Every effort was a fight
A struggle of: I'm
Not good enough

So I kept everything in
All my thoughts and feelings and the mixed up things
But the stopper wore thin
And all the creatures in my head kept clamouring

All the pent up emotions
Every opposing thought
And their little explosions
Forming a new knot
New little poisons
That I can't undo or expel

The words don't come as easily anymore
I'm rusty from disuse
But I'm retaking this floor

I'm not
Going to bother you, trip up your happiness
I have
That bit of pride left, if only remnants
I just
Need another stick to beat myself up with, as
I hang
On by the skin of my teeth, at this one-man impasse
I'm not
All here

But neither am I there