Why do I look to the birds
for a message from you?

The quiet portrait I took of you
in a Wellington hotel room
was stolen for the
front page news

Don't cry.

My therapist asks
'What do you miss about your friend?'
So I write this for you
And pretend you can hear me

Here I say -
I can't and I won't
eat another Japanese pancake
Without you
Without your smile

I can't and I won't
Watch Totoro
Or drink gin with a round icecube
Without you
Without your kindness

I can't and I won't
Listen to Bon Iver
Without your hurt
Without your hurt on my mind

This writing and mourning
has nothing
on the day you died

All our laughter
Adventures
Secret conversations
And promises
Are now gathering dust
in the 5 years it took
To realise
You are gone.

I ran to Kiyomizu-dera in the rain
To get good luck in love
I was lost in a storm
and left alone without a blessing

But your love
the love of painful nights in tears
held together

Love like wildfire
burning away all fear
Travelled
to find me
buried underneath three black stones

You plucked me out of concrete and rock
No storms are here
No storms can find me

Where are my guardians?
Have they all discussed amongst themselves
to leave me in this dark room
To find my own way out
Are you watching me?
Who's there?

There is a fly on your yellow roses
It won't move
The truth
sharpens me like a knife
gliding through glass rain
in a deep breath

Silence,
you kept a wave
under wraps
and away from shore

Behind the shroud
I wait
And watch with untold tolerance
My heart is under strain

The wind of death follows me
But I run, snaking through trees
Dodging, immortal

A marked child
Banking lives for debt

The horizon is topaz or citrine
Like an Omen hand delivered
If it's even there

The night is a whole year long
I'm an animal inside out

Surrounded by heavy columns
My mind cannot be overtaken
I have built
an internal citadel in the dark