you are endless wordplay recorded over a blank coffeeshop soundtrack. your lips throw out pun after pun, but your throat hums to the ghost of a song you swore you didn't listen to.

you are smiles across the breakfast table, blinking too-little sleep from your too-bright eyes, talking too loudly about how you don't need rest when you can get drunk on life. i laugh quietly. the dark circles give you away, my dear.

you are long nights and warm blankets and repeating "we should go to bed" until it sounds like a joke. it is hard to fall asleep when the blood is singing in my veins and my dreams are coming true right in front of me.

you are soft corners and sharp edges, too strong to stand firm and too fragile to break. your footsteps falter and even your confidence has cracks, but i'll admit it's comforting to know that you're just as scared as i am sometimes.

you are fast-talking and over-explaining, and you never do anything halfheartedly so you are also lying-too-easily. but it's okay i never wanted the truth anyway, i hated how it dimmed the memories and haunted the empty space on my mattress. i like how that space is taken up by the curve of your body instead.

you are called a paradox, white wolf or black sheep, predator and prey at odds and at peace. and you are called downward-flowing, like the way i am falling faster and harder for you. then again, maybe i like metaphors too much. maybe your name is just a name. maybe it's the most beautiful sound i've ever heard.
but i call you love because you are the only reason i have any inkling of what it means.

And what you'll find is, your highness
Can paint a picture that is vivid enough to cure blindness
                                                       ­        - J. Cole, January 28th*


And because they have never before seen a naked soul,
they ask me
if I am being deliberately provocative
with my pen.

And then I paint.

So that they too can undress
that mental amnion that has cocooned them
since birth; which itself became still-born
as it was followed by an undying funeral
of parental expectations.

And then I paint.

So that they too can reclaim
that aborted clay and mould their burial
into gestation, and shatter
their amnion coffins
from the asphyxiating breath of non-existence
to the respiratory lust of Being.

And then I paint.

So that I too can remember
that I am they. A victim
******* into the darkness of lost light,
dreams deferred at birth;
who still focuses his pen on this canvas
to cure his own blindness, to see
and paint his naked soul before me,

which we then call Life.

I.

This year I've done nothing remarkable,
because that wasn't on my syllabus.

But,

I did learn how to make conversation
with an empty locker,

because you weren't one of the students
who'd had gone off on Exchange.


  II.

This year I've done nothing worth remembering,
because my timetable had no place for memories.

But,

I did learn how to inject meaning
into moments were there were none,

because you weren't one of the poems
in my last English paper.


  III.

This year I've done nothing for my soul,
because I'm just a candidate number.

But,

I did learn how to learn how my examiners
think. Past papers are the future,

and you aren't one of those questions
that I'll get full marks for again.


  IV.

And this year,

time will pass itself,
killing everything

but my memories,
but my final grades.


V.

And this year,

time will have passed itself,
having killed everything.

Even my memories.
Even my final grades.

VI.

As everything

becomes everything again,
the year next;

with another you,
with another syllabus.

i wonder if the doors in the house you grew up in
started slamming themselves to save your father the trouble.
i wonder if you can remember the last time you prayed,
and if you had trouble unfolding your hands.
i wonder if your mother knows
about the collection of hearts you hide in your closet,
i wonder if she could tell mine apart from the rest.
i wonder if your shoes know the reason why
you keep them by the back door and not your bedside.
and sometimes, i wonder
if you ever think about that night when i told you,
you wouldn't need to drink so much if you had me.
but it seems like we only speak when you've got body on your brain,
whiskey in your glass,
your judgement is overcast,
and you know i'm too weak to ignore you.
i learned how to translate your texts
from drunken mess back into english.
i am fluent in apology, but i don't ask you for them anymore.
this is just how it is.
it's not enough for either of us
but ******* it we are not above settling.
so i will ignore her name on your breath,
and you will ignore the fact that this means something to me.
i always thought the first time i kissed you,
it would be on your mouth.
i just wanted to be something warm for you to sink into,
something that could convince you to stay a second night.
but i sneak you out in the early morning,
and you take a piece of my pride with you when you go.
i am left to nurse the hangover from a wine i've never tasted,
wondering how this is possible.
waiting for the next drunk call,
for the next time i get to pretend we are lovers,
the next time i get to live out the fantasy i am most ashamed of.
it is the one in my head where you want me when you're sober too.

- m.f.

and i realized today
how much effort it takes
to love me

because when i do not
love myself
you have to love me
enough for two people

you're into drugs
and I'm into you
you're always high
my heart is always blue

you look through my body as if it were glass
I could never be enough
still
a glimpse from time to time
maybe my smile reminds you of
the summer
we used to be
what I used to see
as a you and me
a blurred smile
then you're turning away
you twisted the plot and ripped out my heart
you closed your heart
and left me there
choking on shame

you're into drugs
and I'm into you
your world is so small
no space for two

Oh, what a gift,
...Stopping time's flow.
Just to hold you forever,
...Without letting go.

...Racing and burning,
...Forever returning,
...I loved you each day sure as the Sun loves to fly.
...Rising to Day.
...Falling to Night.
...Forever returning,
...Till the day I should die.

Yes, a gift and a curse,
...Our lives but a verse,
...We dance through the stars, as around us they burst.

A bleeding heart,
A world apart,
By sunsets final glow.

Loves tender fruit,
Pure to the root,
Deep in my heart you sow.

Through misty mornings clouding sight,
Through frozen winter rain.
I know tis true...
it beats for you...
my heart and all its pain.