I knew that inevitably
I’d have to go to a funeral one day.
Far into the future,
when I was old and greying.
Mature enough to grieve the loss.

I didn’t think my first funeral would be yours,
four months following
from your twentieth birthday.

I stood in front of everyone who’s ever meant something to you.
I dropped petals over your body.
I spoke words not nearly enough
to encapsulate the friendship we shared.
I felt the weight of the rooms grief upon my own.
I spoke to your family and I finally understood you.

Your body lying behind me,
dressed in white.
The bandaid on your forehead,
giving me a glimpse of where you cracked apart.

Now, I see your expressions in my little brother.
When he cut his hair,
hair the length of yours,
it felt like you left me again.

I hear your voice commentating on my every day.
I think, where are you right now?
Can you see me?

For I don’t know what I believe.
I don’t know where you are,
and I’ll drive myself mad trying to reach you,
trying to put us back in the past,
transport us back to fifteen year olds
who understood each other on a telepathic level.
We thought we had forever to bicker.

I will never find that in someone else.
You’re gone and you took a piece of me with you.

I remember dropping to the floor,
when I found out the news,
unable to breathe.
I called you nine times
before someone took my phone away.
You didn’t even have a voicemail.
How selfish of you not to give me hope.

When I hit twenty myself,
six months later…
It felt impossible
that you weren’t there.

I know you would have dressed up
for my ***** Dancing party,
And I wish more than anything
that I got to see you dance.

you make my heart flutter
with the lightest touch

run your hands over my body
I can't get enough

*** with connection
intimacy with passion
exploring new bounds of pleasure,
ones I believed were only fiction.

I crave you at all hours,
your lips permanently on mine.

there is so much beauty
in our knowledge of each other's bodies.

you've learnt how to love me perfectly,
playing my body like your own personal symphony.

looking in the mirror,
holding my tummy,
grasping the memory of yesterday.

for it seems like yesterday
my baby was with me,
her body shared with mine.

I've etched my skin
with art for her,
but it's not good enough.

I shed countless tears for her,
gave her my liveliness,
but only for eight weeks.
It wasn't good enough.

I wanted to give her life,
everything she deserved.
my baby shouldn't have paid for my err.

I will love her for life,
and wait for her to return.

years, I thought I wasn't destined to love.
naivety really, for I was so young.
but I had just never felt something quite that strong.
fake love, sure.
affection, obsession, nothing more.
maybe I fooled myself into thinking I loved,
merely swept my doubts and grievances under the rug.

now that I'm really falling in love,
I can understand.
a feeling so gentle and yet like quicksand.

I feel myself sinking deeper
and yet wanting to be swallowed,
to lie in his arms forever
the day never to reach tomorrow.

it's frightening really,
"my first love"
the stories of heartbreak you hear from everyone else.

I may not find the courage to tell him.
to wrap my arms around him and confess.
to lay my heard out on his chest.

completely vulnerable

memories aren't good enough.
your figure in my mind cannot compare
to you in actuality.

your fingertips sweeping my body,
your lips hovering over mine,
my heart when our gazes meet.
it will never be good enough
to just remember.

intimate moments shared,
bodies close together.
connection.
and then I just leave.

it can't have meant to you
what it did to me.
surely not,
because you would have shown me...right?
did I show you?

feelings enclosed
behind these four walls,
little glimmers of emotion
swiftly tucked back into security.

we can't even talk,
I can't even show you.
distraction.
trying desperately to escape
your name, your face, your memory.

if I could erase your memory,
I would.
because it will never be good enough.

i am but a fish
swimming through the open ocean alone
and you are the rod
catching me again and again

everytime I think I've escaped
I think I've detached myself
and swam away,
I seem to be dragged back
another hook in my mouth,
my scales turning dull
as you reel me in and laugh.

dory, perhaps I am,
forgetting each second
and swimming back to land
in your arms again and again.
never able to find shelter
from your rod’s torturing embrace.

maybe I can’t,
and never will
be able to swim away from you for good,
for the current seems intent on pulling me back to you.

from chasing butterflies
to chasing *******
that boys could never give to me.

as the years go on
we switch from one poison to another
riding bliss, not bikes
on a path to discovery.