More than anything I want to make beautiful things.

Beautiful things which shock my teachers who
never gave my work much thought.

Beautiful things which confirm to my parents that I
am not a waste of years and years of upbringing.

I have already come to love myself, and it seems
only logical to make others love me the only way I
know how.

I will make make beautiful things. And they will love me.

I went to a party on Saturday night,
one of those inane get-togethers
for so-and-so who came back from
that place that they went.
Though of course,
it's only an excuse to get drunk since
someone scored some cheap, ******
beer from an older sibling or whoever.

I spent about 45 minutes leaning
against some sticky couch before
I saw you standing in a corner, stupidly
close to the speakers and you were
wearing a hessian scarf that had to be
scraping your blemished neck, but
you didn't seem fazed by it at all.

It's probably the new trend like last
week it was platform sneakers that only
the Flinders Street Steps would ever
wear. Sometimes I imagine a conversation
with one of those kids, though it never
gets past them glaring at me.

I nodded, you nodded
(this means we're now friends)
and passed you a cup of some
****-beer that I'm sure you didn't want but
you probably just took it to avoid saying
no and making this more awkward.

I asked you what school you went to and
you replied with some made-up name
that was probably indigenous or something
since a bunch of old, white preachers
didn't want to offend anyone.

You shrugged.

You asked me a question and I countered
it until it became some kind of 20
questions tennis, minus the ***** secrets
but still adequately laced with teenage
awkward. You told me you wrote poetry
and I laughed saying, "Doesn't everybody?"

I realise now that I'm a little hypocritical.

Prodigies, poets, peacemakers:
These are the names we were given before
Avery or Jaxson or Ahlivea
(because ***** the traditional names).
Why couldn't Ruth or Peter or Hester
fulfil these standards for us? I asked you this.

You just shrugged again.

I looked around the stupidly cramped room,
watched some girls pull down their skirts
(for decency, of course),
watched some boys light up their spliffs and
fall over their post-pubescent yeti feet.
I pointed this out; you just nodded and drank.

I noticed the school captain from last year
passed out on the sticky couch.
We talked about him for a little and you said
he got into law at that fancy university in the city
but he shows up to all of his classes completely
hammered. He still manages to hold a 3.5 GPA.

Eventually, we descended into silence
and turned to our phones,
as is the apparent course of action and the
easiest out to a conversation with someone,

Since none of us know better.

I can't seem to write
Words
words
words
My head is full but my pen is dry
My hand,
the conductor,
it's shaking with anticipation
trembling
For some words
Words.
What is this?
These are my thoughts and the inkwell
I'm so inspired
**I am the inspiration

You're always asking me why I keep the receipts

From every place we visit even if it's only a

Quick pit-stop at the Safeway where you used to work,

And I won't tell you why because you'd laugh

At me and remind me how silly romance is

Because I know you found that movie ticket with

The blue eyes sketched between the price and the

Title. And I know that you tossed it out the window telling

Me that the cute ticket officer's eyes were brown, not

The same colour as the stormy oceans I see

Crashing below your eyelashes on the nights when you

Won't tell me what your father said to you and that I

Found out from your brother that your grandmother died

The same day that you met me and that's why

You won't talk about her even though you know I can sympathise.

You always ask me why I write down your angry

Words but I can't tell you that it's because it's those

Moments when I know you're the most bare, even when

We're naked.  And I also know the reasons why

After we finish, you always hide beneath the sheet

As though you're afraid I'll see the crescent-moon

Scar on your left hip that you will never tell me

What it's from.

I guess we all have reasons for our secrets but

Why would the world keep spinning in its unsung persistence

If we knew everything about it?

It's horrible how these things keep happening accidentally.

One moment you feel that the darkness has gone away
And that there's no need to fight anymore,
But in the next second you're curled up on the floor of your
Cupboard with the door locked shut, sharing air
With the monsters hiding there,
All just trying to find some small sense of serenity.

One moment you're laughing with a coworker at the brash
Reaction of your manager and then
In the next second you're in the break room, calling up
Your old friend whom you lost in the darkness,
Begging them to cut the wire from around your throat
Make it stop hurting (your lungs are burning).

One moment you're demanding the earth, the ocean
To give you an out or some kind of answer
To why these things keep happening, why you're suffering
With this stinging boxing ring where you're in both
Corners, riling your other self up
Only to be tapped out after your first step towards the light.

When I say that I didn't get much sleep last night,
I mean that I spent seven hours in my bed
Thinking about the way that the morning light
might play off of your skin
And the way that you would shift and snuffle
into the mattress at my first nudge
And my light breath would be against the nape
of your neck,
Breathing in your contentedness
and how happy the sun is
To be warming your shoulders up as you wake.

So no, I didn't get much sleep last night.


  *"I think I'm falling asleep
   but then all that it means is
   I'll always be dreaming of
   you."

Did I ever tell you that I miss you?
That now when the sun shines, I can't feel its warmth
Because I'm quite sure that you were the sun for me
My own bright star.

I could romanticise the constellations for you,
I really could.
But you of all people know that I was never a
Romantic.
Instead of love letters I'd give you stutters
And instead of flowers I'd give you a crane
Made from the napkin that I used to wipe pasta
Sauce from my face.

Unsurprising is the fact that you left without a word,
Leaving me here to write words about you and
Your arms when they held me,
Even for the briefest of moments.

Sometimes my brain tells my eyes that it was you
That passed the corner by our cafe.
But I'm still convinced that you're a dream and I'm
An insomniac not quite woken up,
Since my eyes are still half-closed.

You could be my Sirius or my Adhara,
Or even their flanks.
After all, Mirzam and Sirius were lovers-
Or siblings, I never did quite get that right.

Forgive me, gorgeous.
I lose my mind around you and talk about the
Stars as if they're your eyes.

That would indeed be the closest comparison,
After all.