You were cigarette smoke and breaking waves on the shores of distant lands. You were crooked teeth and chocolate breath. You were black coffee and shaggy hair. You were hazel eyes and arms I would have died in. You were soft cotton shirts and ***** work boots. You were Bukowski’s good side. You were pool tables and wool hats. You were black curtains. You were everything and more. You were the one that got away. You were.

Take my hand in yours.

Show me Nocturne: Blue and Gold.
Comment on how the blue of the Thames fading to grey
Reminds you of my sad moods.
Slip in the fact that Whistler was born in the state where I grew up,
And died in the country that you call home.
Make it seem like fate, not coincidence.

Show me Newton.
Talk about Blake’s offense at deism.
Watch the mention of religion skitter past my ears
And right over my head.

Show me Norham Castle, Sunrise.
We’ll squint to make out shapes hidden by sun rays,
But it will only blur more.
We’ll take a few steps back and will see it clearly,
Before strangers obstruct our view.
I’ll comment on how the colours look like that of a child’s nursery.

Show me The Awakening Conscience.
I’ll ask you what you think is happening.
You’ll say that you don’t know.
I’ll point out the absence of a ring on her finger,
A mistress, she was.
She longs for something else.
Annie Miller’s beauty encapsulated in a single painting,
Her own life reflected for a moment.

Show me Beata Beatrix.
I’ll gasp with pleasure,
Recite bits of my favourite Rossetti poems for you to hear.
I’ll tell you the story of Rossetti and Lizzie Siddal,
And though you’ve heard it before,
You listen as though you haven’t.

Show me Ophelia.
Kiss my cheek as I gaze upon it, wide-eyed.
Tell me that I am as fair as Ophelia herself,
And I will smile while I marvel in Lizzie’s grace,
Better depicted by Millais
Than by her own husband.

As we leave
And pass the statue of Millais himself,
We shall embark on our own Shakespearean adventure.
To meet Ophelia’s fate,
Content and unaware of danger
Then drowned all at once,
I pray we refrain.

I wrote you letters
And kept them hidden
Beneath my bed
Or in my jewellery box
Or in my shirt pockets.
Each time I found one,
I read it and then took a match to it.
It was my way
Of slowly falling out of love with you.
At least that’s what I told myself.

I was beautiful once.
With hair the colour of red wine
And a smile to illuminate
The deepest caverns of his heart,
I was happy
And that made me beautiful.
My toes dug into seaside sand
Until I was numb beneath the setting sun.
He called me “baby”
And told me to look at the birds over there.
He told me I was beautiful
And I smiled.
Standing in front of a bush full of bees,
Or under a bridge,
Letting the rust gather beneath my fingernails,
I felt beautiful once.

my heart is beating out of my chest.
i am lonely but in love.
i have no hands to hold nor lips to kiss
and yet i rejoice in an empty bed.
i long for him, an ocean away,
and yet too far from my thoughts.
two years and a decade too late.
i crave the solitude of an irish cottage,
thought i cannot help myself in wondering
if i’d be happier with him there.

coughing up something.
heart, soul, lungs,
i don’t know.
nails bitten down too far.
it hurts to touch you,
it hurts to touch me.
every shape,
every curve,
every inch
feels wrong.
my own skin is a prison
for the ethereal being
i long to be.
i am stuck,
hating myself,
loving you.