His "I love you" came swiftly.
Like the monsoon pouring down on a leaky roof
Those three words broke through my defences.
At first they were an ambrosia;
They sustained my life and our relationship.
At least for a short time.

Then "I love you" became an excuse;
For absences, and purpose-filled accidents.
And I ignored the warning signs, the flashing lights.
I pretended like "I love you" was enough...

...But it wasn't.
His "I love you"s were like band-aids on bullet wounds;
Like using play dough to fix cracks in concrete walls.
But I rationed our good memories,
I held on as tight as I could to our love
And watched as it slipped through my fingers.

His "I love you"s became poison,
That seeped deep into my bones,
And turned blue skies grey,
And turned light into darkness,
And slowly killed whatever semblance of love
I fooled myself into thinking we had left.

Love isn't blind,
blind are those,
who never loved.

Happy anniversary.

Can you believe
That it’s been a year?
I can still feel the first time,
Your hands danced on mine,
A soft presence, almost shy.
I could barely pay attention
To the film playing on television
Because there, right beside me,
A story was already unfolding,
One that was far more fascinating
Than any other mystery.

And it was.
Here we are, a year later,
The story continues to be
The most gruelling mystery
Of two people ceasing to be,
Of you & I never becoming we,
Instead, a strange, foreign word
To each other’s vocabulary.
I thought we both saw ourselves
In this picture perfect future:
Lying together on crumpled sheets,
Watching Sherlock on repeat,
Reading poetry and drinking coffee,
A state of being indescribably
Happy.

We were never meant to be that.
Only a manuscript tossed in the trash.
We loved too little, and bled too much,
Too proud to break the silence.
Too scared to end the sentence.
So let’s scrap the ending,
And go back to the beginning:

Happy anniversary.