he cheats on me
he’s not good news
not my first choice
not a choice at all

he tells me about it
with sticky words and **** explanations

is it still cheating if i never asked him out?
or is it just nothing

fooled twice now heaving
won’t stop him leaving

can’t think straight
like if anything he does is

i miss him
like a frayed cardigan
and i miss how he would elaborate
like the bitter wind biting between my fingers
i miss his scent, nostalgic like
an old bookstore or starbucks frappuccino
his eyes like an art gallery
where we went during our lunch break

i miss being ignorant to him
him just being a friend, commenting on
men we found fit while walking.
my type was him, his type was mine
and yet only one of us liked the other

i miss sitting next to him
in maths class, mcdonald’s, the bus
canterbury or the coast
i miss him
and i can’t get over him

but i have to pretend it’s fine because
‘that’s just how life works sometimes’
i reject the premise, i want to cling
onto the idea of him like a lifebuoy

could go either way
like unbiased scales of justice or
a two pence piece

could change my life
or it could just keep it in its current form

may the mould of my life break
and in its shards reforge into something more

love is like a blind man
trusting his fate on others
leaning on their shoulder to guide him

trusting that they won’t abandon him
or lead him into turmoil

your mind is everywhere
but have you ever felt
the simple joy of being content?
how about the wretched sadness
that inhabits your whole being?

i tell you, you haven’t lived until
life gives you pain, torture, anguish-
shaking the very foundations,
and you overcome it.

you may try to flee to the bottleneck,
or the billowing smokestacks.
let me warn you plainly: you won’t
find a place to hide anywhere in the world

i load into the world, ready to
do as the title of the game says: mine and craft,
he joins. dread mixed with love ensues

time goes by, we level up,
wood to stone, stone to iron
making a plan for our little abode

with cows, sheep, and 2 cats,
just as i begin to fantasise,
he leaves the game

the chatbox rings out
Achievement get: DIAMONDS!
and it was all in vain

i know this isn’t healthy, so let
it be
known that i
shan’t,
can’t stop looking at your photo

into your       eyes

feeling a sense of regretfulness

feeling like a sailor lost at sea

i’m a              mess

      but im your mess
     unless                   you
     don’t                    want
this mess to be yours.

august approaches, and i’m
                     still hung up
about your stupidly pretty face

love is alive and well
but it plays dead for me
what a cruel rosebush to sell
when an end to the tunnel i can’t see

how could this be? i hear you cry
and let me answer that for you.
love doesn’t care whether you cheat or lie,
it cares if your mirror doesn’t shatter into

a million pieces. a shattered icon of
human despair, and society as a whole
delicate, fragile even. but it cuts you off
like a blade of his brilliant earthy iris lulls

‘i love young love’
i say to myself, only sixteen
years of age, the words like a loose glove
on myself, as my eyes water and i lean

on a cobblestone wall, each crack and dent
showing not what has happened,
but what will happen, my heart lent
freely to him, broken and saddened

i’ll probably get over him, i say,
echoing his words in my head
on the cobble floor where i lay,
blood trickling out the thread

that passion for gods house
which consumes me
scorches me like a walk-in freezer
cools me like a burning effigy

my passion for where his spirit lies
swallows me whole,
as if it is a whale and i am jonah

i will fight for his spirit’s sanctuary
by any means, valuing my life
over it

i will fight for who it lies in,
and who he is

there we sat on the sports hall floor
talking about everything and nothing.
silently stoking the flames of
my heart, with every glance and side eye,
like throwing a bone to a hungry dog

i know im not what you wanted,
and for that, im sorry.
but can’t you get it, i need you
more then i ever thought i would

need you, i need you
i need you to understand that
you can’t just run away from me,
and expect me to move on.

you may put up your walls,
and i don’t blame you,
but have you considered what the shadow
would do to me?

starve me out of your light,
burn me with its darkness.
cut me with your sword -
it’s better then those words.

why was i so vain
to imagine a future with you?
you wanted to be a forensic scientist,
or an architect.
you wanted me to be a journalist,
say ‘i’d do well in it’
but truly all i want to do is
lay with you in a flat
we had to leave everything behind
to get to.

and i won’t ever
step feet in copenhagen
again, never
shall my feet walk on
those cobble roads

i see your eyes in its water,
i see your hands in its branches
i feel your spirit in my heart
and all i can do is cry in

a vain attempt to get it out
to purge myself from the pain
that’s in the form of an angel

and will you still
spit on the ground i walk on
when i’m the only one instep with you?

when nobody is by your side,
due to your misdeeds and your past,
will you wonder why am i still there?

if i can see your malpractice,
ponder this,
why do i need to defend you?

May God overthrow myself - flipping over
tables in the den of sin which is my heart.

Let His word radiate in my heart, soul and might

Let He who is immovable
move my spirit
from arid land to meadows of clover

Let my Lover encompass my entire being
so I serve Him and
His people

Let my Father guide me and instruct me,
to raise me like a babbling child

Lord, why have you forsaken me?
Leading me to love one i cannot,
left without a home or bed

Jubilant Lord, why have you made me woeful?
Judas I have embodied, selling out myself,
jade eyes reflecting blankly

Lover, may my heart not utter prayers to
lie with those who don’t want me,
but may I lay with you, O My God

and as i walk along the brick road,
i look back and He’s there.
catching up beside me, He asked me
‘why do you abandon hope, and your
love.’ i say that he will never feel the same
and i’ve come to accept it.

He went on to say, ‘blessed are those
who are pure in heart - and you, my child
gave him the purest form of love you could
the same agape that I give you’

my soul rejoiced for His words, and
i’m reminded of how he suffered so I
may feel for anyone without sin

i love god more then him, but i
show them the same type of love.
one reciprocated in action, the other didn’t.

you say that you’ll never be gay
or associate with anything queer
but i tell you
the atoms you’re surrounded by are gay
that sun you are feeling is queer
being gay is in the worlds nature
encrusted like diamonds on a coronet

and i say to him:
have you no shame, no hope
for what you will become?
day by day, you demean yourself
sure, you speak of wisdom and religion,
but you are vain and ignorant.

don’t you know a church window
is supposed to let the sun in?
its colours work together thus,
creating a collage of glory incarnate
where you, mockingly, say that
you are the window itself?

fool, turn around and see so
you know nothing, you are nothing
and continue down this path? you’ll return
to nothingness, a void, somewhere between
something and something else

the precum drips out of my head
and my teardams crack
as i mourn the life i could’ve had
the self discovery ripped away
the friends who left, my heart shattered
by saying those two words

new identity made, but is it
just a farce?

new friends made, or do they
want me just for my body?

my heart reconnected with gold and lacquer
but is it all in vain?

i lie in my bed, riding a clarity i only feel
before the shame comes in

unadded, exiled from the kingdom
i think back to his enchanting features
and weep bitterly, proclaiming:
oh, woe is me, a person exiled from
the city walls which guards against barbarians

god forgive me for
falling into temptations not of the devil
but of myself, my own musing:
forgive me for allowing myself to fall for him
forgive me for not trusting you

your body will
wrinkle and shrivel
crack and deform itself
into a tapestry of frailty and age

what then, will you have?
your best feature taken away from you
no more wages paid - nobody wants elders

weep bitterly, for your life will speak for itself
a life of virtual prostitution, and for what?
notoriety? money? what for?

at the end of the day, you’ll have the light
a beacon of hope that guided you through
listen for it, and it’s still small voice

it takes me captive, imprisoning me
in shackles i can’t shrug off

can’t feel my grief
can’t ******* rage
can’t grasp happiness
can’t see anything except
nothingness

it swallows my feelings whole,
absorbing my humanity
absorbing my soul
into something familiarly unrecognisable

i dream of
running my hands through
his black curls
but his heart is obsidian
and i am an iron pickaxe

please forgive me and lead me
to the path to your door
let me see your face and see the light
and demonstrate to me your might
vanquish what is sore
within me, beholding ye

now, he said he wanted another
said ‘sorry’ like it was a plaster
meant to coverup the hole in my heart
the blood overruns my chambers
my valves are clogged up
my ducts remain open and constantly run
warm water down my face

what did i expect?
for him to not like me, sure,
but nothing could prepare me for the
emptiness of the void of nothingness

i walk along the backcountry road
watching the occasional land rover go by
and i wonder: where did it go wrong?
what mistake in navigating my way home
did i end up down this path, away from
the path i could see the end to

though i may want you
i don't want to hold your hand
backtrack any thoughts or words
written with you in mind
regret devoting so much
time and energy to study your features
or wondering whether you can end up
making the mistake of being with me

a slurry of fire and magma can’t escape
through the crust, being stopped by a
thin layer of earth, unable to express
itself, to wreak havoc upon the earth.

it’s passion is bottled up, its fear is contained,
his fury is sealed, saved for another day
when it can express its emotion.
but now, the crust encases it like a weighted blanket

i cannot tell where you stand
or what you think of me
do you tread on dry land,
or do you go through the sea?

your signs are unreadable, your lips are
divine, perhaps a sign that
you are like a traffic light going back
to green, or to red, to tell me to slow my car

but i can’t stop, it’s on a hill
and the brake-line is cut  
and as i gaze out of my windowsill
and see a tree sprouting chestnuts

and they ask me:
why do you subscribe to spotify premium?
and i say that it’s only to put the song
by the smiths with his name on loop
that i might hear his name spoke

your eyes inject me like fentanyl
making me addicted
making me dependent on every glance to live
i’m addicted to your smile, your charm
and all that’s you

he speaks to me about the xylem
and the phloem, meaningless to me when
the only thing i want to do is listen
to him yap, and to gaze at his eyes
like it’s the sun, and i’m a plant

you really make me swoon for you
weak in the knees for the idea
that you would choose to be mine

my eyes sting with tears of
love, kissing my cheeks and embracing
my face in a cover of water

the tears streak down my face, dripping
off of my jawline and falling onto the
peanut floor, flaking off into oblivion

the floor leads to the door, wide open as
the possibility of returning to him
completes itself, and goes out with him

speechless in the fact he could be mine
but could he be with another?
doubtless that he would be able to get with
another. if he isn’t, do i have a chance?

secure in the will of god to keep me on
the straightest path, but what if he’s on the path?

there will come a time, my friend
where you’ll look back on that
road full of bumps and potholes
whole, being able to look in the mirror
and see yourself, not shame, not despair
just you wait

hit me while you look
at me with those doe eyes
strike me on my mouth
where i spew lies saying i don’t like you
cease my heresy and burn me
for speaking against the truth

my hands burn with the sting of nettle
my mouth, dry and tasting of metal
his lips, scented with chapstick and chocolate
overpower it, taking authority over my
mouth, his eyes establish an orbit
around me, and my life

scared shitless of the idea that
in a month i’ll probably never see
him again

a constant in my life ever since year 7
someone who awoke something in me
allowing me to see who he is
what am i
without him anchoring me
like a drifting ship to shore

i saw him, my love, kissing him, my hate
then i woke up, filled with vile
and anger of the idea that
my greatest love goes to my greatest hate
instead of me

my brain bleeds for him
the thoughts of him stabbing my mind
creating cracks of light within the carefully
maintained façade

and i let it happen

my love for you, my friend
becomes incarnate like our lord
where he, doing miracles,
opens our hearts and quakes the foundation

my love for you, like his love
for us, opens my heart to your ethereal beauty
and quakes the very foundation of my self

i take thee, my friend, to be my will

you are my lighthouse
guiding me home with your beam
i scurry towards its luminance like a mouse
and run my finger down your body, down your seam

my record spins around the spindle
it’s rose-shaded hue seen through the dustcover
it plays a symphony of birdcalls and beatles songs
i try to give it away a dozen times but
no one takes it

why does everyone claim to want a record
then they don’t take mine, one in perfect condition
only if you don’t look at the scratches

i don’t know what i did wrong
but knowing me, it’s bound to be something
big, something that gives you a right to
cut me off

do you hate me for what i did?
that nameless, insignificant crime of such
significance

i still imagine what my life would be like
if you were still my friend
but now im burning in purgatory
the coolness biting me

i guess i’m a hopeless romantic.
want to buy petty little things
to see a crack in his pretty smile

want to pick buttercups for him
so i can see the glow on his face
yellow, radiant, much like him

on a summers night drinking
cheap beer and kissing him
knowing his taste over *****

in his bed listening to his
billy joel and nirvana cds
not noticing them playing but

his green eyes piercing my soul
as he side eyes me and smirks
laying in my arms warm embrace

just let the goings go
and the time flow out

like fine wine
drinking it with you

on the beach of my making
but who knows?

anything could happen

missing him while i’m in a country
a country where im supposed to be at home
a country that is mine to identify with

i identify with him
with his country, his people, his ideals
i’ll be a soldier for his country if that means
i could be a soldier for him

don’t force me to fight for some far-off land
some land where i can’t be me
where i can’t express my love, my passion