nuances. paper flights. deliriums.
you could buy loneliness in a bottle
of wine, and i'd draw a map
of this world on your hands.
i've got a past like a shadow
that follows me around in my head.
brown eyes. tambourines. broken bells.
like your voice in my ears, and they snap
at the sound of glass hitting the floor,
that spills liquid all over me, soaking me
in your intoxicating sadness.

whispered dreams and echoes in the dark
throwing tantrums at night for a *******
piece of death between my frozen-in-motion
lips that mouthed the three words in the living

i need you
because i do

i pressed the tips of my fingers to my eyelids until
i saw phosphenes and everything hit me like a bullet
so i ****** oxygen inward as if drowning and
then i realised i needed you even more than that

more than the oxygen that kept me alive and alone
more than the blood that fills my veins and whole heart
more than the alcohol that ***** my liver and lifts my head
more than that what makes time move forward
more than **** gravitation that has the earth turning
more than whatever it is that makes me think at all

i need your hand on my back to keep me steady
i need you talking to me like i'm real and i'm here for you
i need you walking beside me in the alleyways of town
clenching my hand in case this is over too soon
i need your hair stroking my cheek like it used to
i need your eyes on me in all the ruddy colours they are
i need you with all your laughter, cries, **** ups, frustration,
caresses, shame, fears, dreams, echoes, tantrums and lips

you and i

it's engraved in our skin
that's why.

i don't want to sit on teraces or chill at the park
i don't want to drink alone at 1:30am with patti smith playing
i don't want to go to sicily like a sellotaped body
i don't want any dried out tulips in *** on the table today

i just want some confirmation
to know if it's still possible
to know if it's still real
to know if i'm it
and if you miss me
like i do right now
and forever

just imagine now
one day
i will lie
here in amsterdam
on the cold
stones on the
dam square and
i will drink
wine and *****
from their bottles
warm in my
blood spilled down.

it should not
be so easy
to surrender yourself
to your own
solitude and sorrows
not as easy
as it's been
all my life.

one glass of ***** to devour
two kisses and an intimate hug
three punches in the face
four cigarettes for all moments i fled

five minutes without your hands on me
six dried flowers under my bed
seven days of suffocation
eight matches drifting in the bowl

nine short blinks with your bright eyes
ten fingers holding stones in cups
eleven photos on the bulletin board
twelve slow steps turn to echoes

thirteen unlucky girls in line
fourteen melodies haunting my sleep
fifteen eyes demand your attention
sixteen drunk doves shifting in my arms

sometimes i wish i couldn't think
then i wouldn't have to worry
about being wrong,
humiliated,
scared,
alive,
or even in love

we keep circling around
in this pattern
so every day feels like the next
and those sunrises lost their charm,
but i don't want to think
i don't want to think if i'm this
and so
much of a coward

i don't dare giving you the truth
for i don't want to ruin that image
even though it's completely unreal,
i just can't trust myself to
do anything with you,
and if i can't do that
i can't stand thinking

that's
how much
i think
i want
you.

one day i woke up
and i found myself sleeping beneath the leaves.
three nights alone hidden in the soil,
where fear was illumination and i
was scared of the next dawn's daylight.

somewhere high above me
birds kept circling in their orbits,
dreading the earth that slowly buried me
with its old hands at last,
making up the rusty casket with room for only one.

this is the fifth time today my eyes fall closed.
in a minute or two i'll dissolve into the night sky.
i've become much more silent,
but only a little less eager.
i'm tired during her absences,
and she vividly walks in dreams.

this is the third time this week i think of cigarettes.
i wonder how i manage to survive the suffocation.
i'm living with severe headaches,
and loving my personal sadness.
so in turn i put death between my lips,
and slowly breathe my life away.

this is the first time you affect me this way.
and i dug deep in the earth to find you alive.
i want you as much as i don't.
it's like nicotine and sleep;
more than a little and less than too much,
just enough,
until we are airborne for good.

the most humble thing you can do
is strip somebody down to the
pureness they truly are.

forget the shape of the nose
forget the colour of the eyes
forget the curve of her waist
forget the tattoo on his arm
forget the unnecessities

only this way you will
come to love them whole,
genuinely and exactly as they exist.

this world is a ****** up world
a messed up spidery web
you make me feel like i'm split in half
i never even wished for you
but i still can't lose you

you're the atlantic ocean dried out
you're silent fireworks in summer
you're a cat that barks songs in C sharp
you're time ticking backwards
you're cells merging instead of dividing
you're a book written in punctuation

you're something i don't understand

and honestly
   that's what
       frightens
           me the
              most.

i scooped a lover out of the deep blue water
i scooped a nemesis out of the bright blue sky
the century played out,
the night extinguished,
so we can divide our luck, into
split-second decisions, into
comfort around strangers.

guilt stained hands move over your back
with no plot in mind they trace your spine,
get to know your nerves,
collect the pages,
of a stranger's mind.

once i was in love with a girl.

she was as fragile as a snowflake,
and as strong as the howling wind.
when she danced her hair became the waves,
and her eyes lit up in green like grass.

five years ago i was in love.

i called her my girl, echoing across the air.
she never really heard me.
instead she only left me her fingerprints,
engraved in my skin.

the snow melted,
the wind subsided,
and the echoes faded.

i never knew her name.

a lonesome old man with a wandering eye
slumped in the shadows of the wild and animal forest.
i watched him grow into a rusty tricycle,
dominating dusty lanes and pavements without direction;
and endless world ******* up dirt under his wheels;

dissolving memory like effing oxygen in lungs,
yelling sing-song celebrations between the leaves,
completely unwrapped, a drive, a rhythm, a trance,
a state, ignited, lost hearts; lost times;

worn tricycle, overgrown boy.
we left the lights on to hush
and i pretended he was young
for every minute he was alive and dead.

the great darkness will swallow you whole,
puke and spit you out where your body is;
will tattoo sweat on your back in jet black
ink in blurs, here with your head down;
will scratch over your bare breast and leave marks,
for every acquaintance long gone;

the great darkness will be mean, reuniting the path
of a spine and breaking that head;
circling around in patriarchal patterns that
shifted and shivered swam away;
a raw verse stuck on two hands, waiting to be cut
out in words and palm lines,
painstakingly and cautious and reckless;

reckless like the great darkness is,
no wandering eye will show it,
no racing heart will catch up,
no thinking brain will recognise the blueprints,
you will render love useless like you know

and you know it: give in
and the great darkness will too.