He smelled of old cigars;
The kind that have been lit on back verandahs by men who have worked too hard and have lived too long.
His kiss tasted of pepper.

I needed him more than he needed me;
But I guess minutes turned to hours;
And days turned to years;
And soon we were miles a part and months too late.
We became awkward silences and bitter ends;

And our love was like looking onto a vast blue ocean, in the middle of a heat wave;
And knowing that we shall never swim in it.

She was curled up in a ball.
Covered in blankets and remorse.
At that moment nothing mattered like it does now.

She thinks of him.
I know she does.

I know she lays awake at night, re-thinking every moment.
She can feel her head resting on his;
Or the touch of his hand as it slowly brushed her arm.
She can hear his heart beat through the darkness of the room
And she can imagine his voice;
Or picture the words that made her break.

She imagines him at his best.
And at his worst.
But what scares her the most is the idea of him;
With her.

What a deadly thought.

I can not say your skin feels like home
But I've been wandering for so long
Your heart seems like the only place I've known
And when you've been wandering
You always try and find a place to sleep
So can I sleep on your chest into early next week?
Because I'd like to get lost
Between your ribcage
Trace your veins with my fingers
And quietly say;
"Your eyes are like oceans"
And I've been swimming for so long in them
I think I might drown
But it would be an honour
And a privilege
If you were the one to pull me down
And I wish to tell you;
I like the way I hear how fast your heart starts to beat,
As our legs intertwine
And I like the way your whole body jolts,
In the middle of the night
And if I could write you a metaphor
With the kisses I lay upon your breast
I would write you one that simple says;
*When you wrap your arms around me
It feels like a test,
That I already know the answers to,
So I don't count it as cheating

We were like alcoholics;
Only, we were drunk on the idea of each other.

We were the last to leave bars, stumbling home in the early hours of the morning to each others arms.

We spent all our money on endless bottles of kisses, and close misses to a love we deserved but we would never let ourselves become sober;
Instead we would just make plans for another trip to the store, attempting to buy ourselves more time.

Our wine glass hearts only reflected the cast of better days;
Where we could recall the way it should be to love someone, but we were not as strong as we thought we were, just drunk on the mentalities of others.

We hid liquor lies under our beds and always kept our feelings deep in our heads so that we wouldn’t say something we would regret in the morning.

We were addicted to each other.
Addicted in the worst way possible, and it took weeks for the alcohol to leave my veins.

Even now the echoes of those days still linger on my breath;
And everyone can still smell you on my lips.

My problems back then were nothing compared to what they are now.
It feels like I've been up in the air for so long, I've forgotten how to find my own ground.

So I keep looking for myself in the cracks of the pavement;
In the hope that one day I will be able to say;

*"I made it"

There is a difference between lust and love.
I was stupid not to realise that;
But by the time I did, it was too late.

To meet with sleepy eyes;
As we woke to an awaken sun rise;
With our bodies laying side-by-side;
I held your gaze as you did mine.

"It’s too early",
You grumbled through sleep;
As if the time you have is the time you keep;
Eyes of blue, of oceans deep;
Words are rich, though silence is cheap.

Light scattered along the bed;
As the sheets held hearts of rose red;
We held our thoughts in the backs of our heads;
For memory lane is where they tread.

An unsure love on twisted hope;
You held the gun and I tied the rope;
Although we tried to survive, we could barely cope;
So we fell in an endless downwards *****.

In all my words, I was more than true;
But still you seemed to leave with a clue;
And although you’re gone, I will always love you;
For my heart has never missed such eyes of blue.

I’ve come to realise that people would rather crush you than build you up.

They would rather bury you alive just so that they can stand on the solid ground.

So don’t you dare tell me to hold my ground when you’ll be the first one to bury me in it.

I will not call you beautiful.
For beauty is a man-made thing
Whose meaning turns to nothing
When I compare it to you

I shall not allow myself to simply call you pretty
For the flowers that bend their heads towards the setting sun
Look at me in pity
And proclaim that it was you who taught them how to grow

And so,
When words lose their meanings
You find a way to hear things
Differently
And make sense of the world

How then can I simply call you pretty?

You showed me that effort is a foot you must put first
And that the hurt
Is always what it is worth
For it proves you tried

And so darling,
I could take your eyes
And compare them to maple forests
And pine cones
But then little would any body know
That you see the world like lace

And I only wish to trace the thoughts of your mind
Thread them together with cotton and time
And show you how perfect they are

For your radiance runs as far
As the eye can see
And your love can set fire to trees
And burn whole cities to the ground

And,
As if protesting that it’s hate thats been getting us down
You learn to forgive
Turn ashes into molten
And hand out kindness
As if reminding us
To love ourselves

And so,
I can not call you beautiful
Or pretty
I can not simply compare your eyes to maple forests
And your body to flowers buds
Because you are worth so much more then that
For it was you who made me believe in love

Just so you know,
every time we stole kisses at red lights,
I'd pray they'd never turn green.
And every time we went for those midnight drives,
you were the only thing worth seeing.
I have live long enough to know that too much time will **** a person,
it always does.
and I wouldn't rush to say this
But just so you know,
the first time I told you I loved you was whispered into your ear as you slept,
Head on my chest,
you moved slightly,
lightly breathing in and out.
I have never been very good at speaking;
you should know that by now.
So much so,
that by writing the words 'I love you' with my finger on your skin,
I hope that one day you will recognise it and let it in.
I have done it a million time,
on the couch,
in the shower,
even when you drive
But just so you know,
I don't do it because I'm afraid of what you'll say,
I do it because every time I write it,
your heart seems to beat a different way.

I relied on the broken promises of my father.
I lived on the false hope they gave but after a while I just stopped believing them;
I stopped believing him.

They lied.
Memories do not fade.
They do not past,
And you never forget them.

The contrast between light and dark is a beautiful one.
The storm twisted in curls of navy blue lapping with silk white tips of clouds, charging along the sky.

The sun is low; only just awaken from a long sleep.
Its bright and crisp; pure beautiful, shinning across the lush world of green.

I watched the sun greet the storm and dance along the sky;
Kissing each other good morning with sleepy eyes.
It was simple;
Beauty meets beauty.

The contrast between light and dark was a beautiful one;
It was the contrast between you and me.

The play ground was a battle ground;
Where he was constantly bombarded with an arsenal of nick names;
Which seemed to get re-loaded every day;
And have an endless supply of ammunition.

He was left looking for himself in the lost and found;
Playing Hide-And-Seek;
Trying to find the broken fragments of himself and count down to the day where he could finally set himself free;
But he was just another bomb;
Threatening too explode.
My little toy soldier.

I wondered if the doors in your house lock by themselves because they know you’ll be too drunk to do it later. Maybe they know you like to keep your secrets locked away behind closed doors, so you don't have to admit to them; As it is easier to explain the absent of truth when there are lies to fill in the gaps.

From a young age I learnt to appreciate silence, as your nights brought a storm of yells and screams as my mother fought with words but you fought with a bottle and a wine glass. I wonder if the man at the bottle shop knew your order before you even walked through the doors, as you became quite the regular.

I wonder if my mother went to bed and cried the night she found bottles stashed away in the attic where nobody was suppose to find them; But almost six years after you left,  there they were. Maybe closed doors weren’t enough to keep your secrets locked away so you had to hide them in the attic, among family photos and old rusted bed frames.

I wonder if the sound of slamming doors still haunt my sisters ears. For they heard you leave in drunken anger, in the dead of night, to who-knows where.

I wonder if you ever thought of coming back; But I guess alcohol acted as a better family then we ever did because at least bottles don’t think, or have feelings and broken hearts.

I wonder if you’ll ever get the smell of alcohol out of your hair or from under your skin, and I wonder if you will ever keep the promises you once made me; But I guess my calls for help were nothing more than the soundtrack of a late night television show, left on as you fell asleep on the couch; red wine staining the carpet, leaving a tattooted mark as a reminder, telling those that you’d been here.

I wonder what it felt like when you realised, as children, we once replaced you beer with milky-water because we didn’t want daddy drinking anymore; Or what about the time when we threw out your tobacco. I  remember you sent us to our rooms, and shut the door behide you.

I wonder if you remember the time we went fishing and I asked you about the ocean. You explained that the ocean was like a human mind; so beautiful and clear,  yet deep and mysterious and that if I was to learn one thing in life, it was to never judge a person at first glance because just like the surface of the ocean, they only reflect the world around them. So I never judged you. I tried to understand you, but how was I  suppose to understand you when you kept closing doors in my face and threatening me with padlocks and lost keys?

I grew up learning to place my ears against the doors of your mind and try to arrange the puzzle pieces of your thoughts in an attempt to somehow create an image; But all I got was an unfinished picture with missing pieces.

I wonder if you remember the day I stopped visiting you because it was too hard packing my feelings into a suitcase and lugging them back and forth. I often wonder if you hated it that I didn’t call your house "home" or spent most of my time there, alone, outside because I didn’t like closed doors.

I remember once I  asked you why you drank so much. You said you liked the taste. I guess you also liked the heart break that comes with it, and the loneliness.

I wonder if you remember the night you got so blinded drunk you fell alseep on your bed with your pride by your side, waiting for my memory to pick it up and throw it out the window. I wonder if you remember I turned off the radio and let the silence tuck you in and the darkness sing you lullabies. I wonder if you remember I quietly closed the door behind me as I left;
Leaving another locked door;
With a deadly secret inside.

I see another world when I look in your eyes

He fell out of reach, like a song on the radio which I didn't quite catch the name too;
Leaving a sweet nostalgic melody in my head, and lyrics to words that will never make sense.
In those short matter of moments he became a boy without a name;
A tune of a lost song that will never seem to fade.

You are a constellation of stars that could light up even the darkest of skies.

We were all a mirrored image of eachother;
Like roses without colour;
We lacked imagination.

We grew up from the soil of worth and were watered in the ideals of others.
Our stems were strengthened by the words ‘Do as you are told’;
So we aligned ourselves in the direction of the sun, hoping that maybe its rays could give us some sort of identity;
But before we had a chance to establish, they cut us from our roots and placed us in a vase, creating a bunch of perfect school children.

They said none of this was my fault.
But here I am, contemplating every moment and wondering where I went wrong;
Trying to pinpoint the exact moment where you stopped loving me.