These road signs point to where you’d be
if you weren’t kneeled over in constant apology
you tell me sometimes you can hear
Aidan’s laughter at night,
as if someone’s strung them around
street lamps like fairy lights
your lungs collapse at the mention of his name
and your chest heaves with trembling shame
but you never told anyone else about the way
guilt straddles your shoulders every morning
as it leans towards his mother’s ears screaming
ears now turned deaf with grief

You tell me about the nights so dark
you can’t tell it apart from the hollow in your chest
most days you find it too hard to breathe
because the guilt hugs you so tight
it forces itself in your lungs
where these organs can’t contain
your feeling of sin
so you keel over and ***** by the road
where you last held Aidan

There are footprints in the mud
where he was last standing
but the imprints have hardened and Aidan has grown since
there was a much colder instance
when his sister flung a picture frame at you
so it shattered and you picked up a shard
to scratch out unforgivings in the mud by the road
where you watched your best friend die

I've been seeing you in my dreams
pink sky and a cape
your smile is bigger than the moon
and wider than the ocean
you are breathing in flakes

I dreamed someone didn't let you say sorry
and you punched him over
and over
so that he'd know how it feels
to have an apology stuck in your throat

There was a night I told myself
your smile was just a mirage
and feeling every bump on the road
was just like making sense
of your breathing pattern

Then the time when I heard
the gap in your laughter
and realized it had lost its soul
when you forgot whose to mould it against
oh, the irony.

One dream had you walking barefoot
across a wooden bridge
you’d kicked your shoes into the sea

Suddenly you’re on a huge green field
making flowers die as you walk

I kept seeing you as lampposts,
a soft gentle presence in the dark
but always flickering
threatening to leave in a moment

There were the bruised hips
from the torrent of unspoken words
I decided I didn't want to keep

There was a postcard you sent me
with a return address that didn't exist
so I could write to nothing like I always have

The pillows with the tear stained blotches
hold reminders of every night
I tell myself I can make do
without seeing your eyes

And all these dreams I've had
darling
are from my veins
pulsing with visions of unrest

There's a pinprick on each of your knuckles on one hand and I think I can hear you say they're for weekdays of guilt.

You're saying you'll scratch out "sorry" on your palm and press it on everything you own so the blood stains leave their mark.

You think the world is much easier to live in if you don't have to apologize with your lips.

“Don’t take too many pictures of the same thing,” you snapped once but it was only because you wanted them to see the sky turn from pink to orange for themselves and not on glossy paper. It was almost like you were saying sorry to the sky.

You watched something funny once and I remember you kneeling over with your face in the carpet. I thought you were laughing until you refused to get up hours later and I saw tears seeping through the fabric and realized you were begging on your knees.

You stand by the glass window, your eyelashes catching the light with your eyes downcast. You do that every time you think you cannot tell the difference between being ruthless and pretending you don’t care.

I remember the day you stood across and finally looked right at me with your black eyes and your gritted teeth, your breath steadied in patterned gulps, your hands hanging down the sides of your hips.

Your biggest apology was this stone cold silence.

Darling if you were a noise you'd be static sound

Today will not be the same as yesterday as much as you'd like it to be
I finally learnt to remember the image of deserts etched across your knee
Yearning is a cheat; it weaves into clocks and watches pretending to be time
And I know that when it comes to us coincidence might resign

You let the city in your lungs collapse under this emptiness that’s your earthquake
I hope you refuse to smile if it isn't for my sake
I wish for the days to be gone that are you and your concrete frowns
For now I only wish to see you safe and sound
I will caress your white shirt soaked in mud
If you promise to stop jumping off buildings, staining the parapet with your blood

And so we depend on borrowed feelings
Don’t you think that remorse is time worth ticking?
For me, it skims across lined pages
And for you, it settles back into rusted battle cages

Truly, it’s another one of those questions your tongue holds no answer
I am familiar with the way desperation forces you to bite into inked rubber
I've been scratching spirals into wooden floorings
In an effort to take the pain out of waiting

And if you look up, the shadows are holding out their hands
You turn to me, your face contorted in the strain of trying to understand
I cannot bring myself to smile because confusion lies in everyone
They’re whispering your name; they’re pulling us into oblivion