Seven in the morning
Has always been a difficult hour.
So many days started
With too little sleep,
Or too little motivation
To face the day ahead.

But that one beautiful memory,
Thirty two stories in the air,
Is enough to redeem seven am
For the rest of my life.

I can still picture it;
The blinds are slightly open,
And a a perfectly orange sunrise
Is spilling through the window.

The light shines straight across you,
Bathing you in celestial rays
As you sleep peacefully,
And the world is blissfully still.

I savour every second of that morning,
Committing it to memory
In the most vivid detail I can manage,
So I can remember it on nights like this.

Your alabaster skin,
Softer and smoother than anything,
Is resting just beside me,
With the sheet gently settled
Just below the top of your legs.

I watch as your back rises and falls,
Slowly and peacefully;
I’d never seen you sleep quite like that.

I study the curves, peaks and valleys
Of your body
Like some human topographer,
Wanting to ensure my mental map
Doesn’t have a single error
Or missing piece.

You turn your face towards me,
And I had never been so happy
To see you keep sleeping.

Your perfect lips are slightly pursed
Enhancing your natural volume and texture,
While that gorgeous shade of pink
Is complimented by the orange sunlight.

You are so beautiful.
I find myself thinking it often.
But that morning sits forever in my mind
As the most I’ve ever found myself
Transfixed in reverent bliss.

There are few perfect moments in life,
But that morning was one of them.
If life truly flashes before our eyes at death,
I want my last conscious moments
To be spent inside that memory.

Sweet words drip like honey,
From tongue to ear to brain,
Forming golden pools of love,
In which only we know how to swim.

Your siren song echoes from another room,
Beautiful notes sidling through the air.
You sing the melody that I will dance to,
Until my feet are broken and ******.

Adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin,
Flooding my brain when I’m near you.
Like a fever you have me sweating,
And I need you like the blood in my veins.

No matter what happens,
We always come back to our sweetness.
Even when it seems like it’s all going wrong,
The contrast just makes it bittersweet.

Feelings have always been our power,
Even throughout our very first night;
Flowing freely, well into the small hours,
From brain to brain, and heart to heart.

Together we found an entirely unexplored,
Previously unknown emotional landscape;
“Empathoria”, only truly able to be reached
By two souls connected in perfect love.

We both feel such euphoric joy,
Such cereberally connected satisfaction.
Within us, our energy merges beautifully;
Physically, we had never felt such ecstasy.

Once you’ve reached such great heights,
No other kind of connection could compare,
To what our everythingship was becoming,
Now blooming and blossoming forevermore.

Through oceans of time we have travelled,
To find each other in this lifetime,
So that we might share many lives together,
Sometimes contained within the one.
Our mutual evolution continues,
As we continue to seek enlightenment.

Every time that I think I finally know myself,
We seem to find some previously unknown
Critical and crucial piece of understanding,
Which allows one or both of us to grow,
To deepen our knowledge of ourselves,
And to strengthen the connection we share.

Those nights spent deep in conversation,
Filled with psychoanalysis and philosophy,
Blessed by spirituality and the supernatural.
I am so fortunate to have been with you;
I’ve never loved spending time with anyone,
But this time with you was everything to me.

We used to spend every waking moment
Talking, singing, dancing, *******,
Until we couldn’t sustain the day any longer,
Then collapse together,
Into the most beautiful and restful
Sleep that I have ever known.

You were my dream, and my nightmare;
My ride or die every night every day,
For five wild, weird and wonderful years.
You were everything to me,
And our everythingship was supposed
To last forever, in every lifetime.

Now we turn fitfully throughout the night,
And our days are spent in regretful silence.
Valentines Forever seems discarded,
And unless we can somehow recover,
The first of February
Will be my personal day of mourning forever.

When I saw you for the first time,
I didn’t even see your face.
Yet you captivated me with ease,
Perfectly still amongst the constant rush.

Wind shouldn’t be able to blow indoors,
Yet the air whirled all around you.
The blur of people passed unperturbed,
And there you stood in perfect reverie.

The swiftness with which the air rushed in
Was outstripped in an instant,
As every atom left the lobby’s atmosphere,
And my eyes fixed on you in rapt attention.

I can still picture you perfectly.
It’s not just the way your shirt is sitting,
Not just the gorgeous slight curl to your hair, Nor the grace and comfort in your stance.

It’s something so much more intangible,
It’s little bit of everything, seen and unseen.
It’s that energy that I felt, that I still feel
Every time I see you, even ten years later.

I heard when I was younger
That no two fingerprints are alike,
Eight billion people on this planet,
Sporting ten fingers apiece,
Which means eighty million patterns,
All uniquely arching, looping and whirling.

I learned that feelings can taste
Different to different people,
Rarely do heartbuds like or crave the same.
Sadness to some may be sweetness to others,
Moments that kickstart my heart,
May not be what sets yours ablaze.

Now that I am older,
I know the most rich and rewarding taste
Comes from the heart that compliments,
Contrasts and contradicts your own,
Joins you in exploring new flavours,
And always relishing old favourites.

The heart, like the tongue, is a muscle.
Every time we taste the feelings of life,
We flex that muscle a little more.
When we flex our hearts together,
Rubbing our heartbuds over one another,
That muscle grows, as does our love.

The secret, I think, to a lasting love
Is flexing your hearts together in new,
Satisfying, comforting, challenging ways;
Evolving with each little bit of everything,
Always keeping love at the centre,
Remaining they are your favourite taste.

So if you find your person (like I have),
Study their heartbuds hungrily,
Learn all of their favourite tastes.
Understand them, be rich and rewarding,
So you may satisfy and be satisfied.
Give yourself entirely with love.

There always seem to be days (or nights)
Where I blithely overstep
Even our fluid and flexible boundaries,
And the silence that follows is deafening.

You always knew who I was,
And that I could be what you needed,
But somehow it still takes you by surprise
When I act exactly like we said I would.

I always wanted someone
Who would call me on my *******,
Which you’ve been happy to do,
From the moment that we met.

This was always us,
Exactly what we said we needed.
So I’ll find what I’m supposed to,
And you’ll act like you’re offended.

We always work it out together.
So after we’ve both played our parts,
And we’re ready to go home together,
We can just smile, and say “Hello, You”.

For a long time I’ve wished I could write
about anything other than despair.
For a long time you and I
Have been developing these feelings,
Nurturing them with time and effort
Like water and sunlight to a seed.

With warmth and substance
They bloomed,
Radiant petals burst throughout my chest,
Through the very core of my being.
And suddenly I don’t feel like writing
About despair the way I used to.

Suddenly I find myself struck
With inspiration remembering your skin.
How my fingers crest the valleys and peaks
Of your beautiful form,
And I find myself wishing that I could write
About the opposite of despair.

I find myself wishing that I could write
About the hope and happiness I’ve found,
About who and what
Brought me back to the light
And made me wish that I could write
Poems that made you smile instead of cry.

And suddenly it doesn’t feel so hard
Anymore.
I don’t find myself wishing that I could write,
Because the words fall out of me
And onto the page
When I think about you.

You told me once that the word “liminal”
Refers to a state of uncertain transition.
My brain has lingered on that ever since,
And so much has clicked into place now.
There was, and is, so much I don’t know,
Or that I had always been wrong about.

I was often wrong about -
Words and their definitions,
Songs and their intended impact,
My realistic levels of fleeting sanity,
And the depths of my paranoid insanity,
Just to name a few key realisations.

To make matters worse,
My misunderstood and mistaken thoughts
Were so determined to be certainties.
I should have remembered two things;
The heart, soul and brain of my Lover,
And the fact that “Our love is God”.

I’ve found my way out of the dark,
And I wouldn’t have made it without you.
I should never have lost my way so badly,
Or forgotten those two core truths.
You are everything to me, everything,
And I’m so sorry for the pain and hardship.

Liminality seems to still be in play;
I’m hoping that the damage I’ve wrought
Hasn’t pushed you away too much.
I’m here, I’m ready for what comes next,
And I’m praying that our transition
Is a new evolution of “self”, together.

Influence can no longer secretly shake us,
We are aware and we are awakened.
All those long nights trying to understand
Will have been worth every single second,
If it means that we move forward together,
Healthier, happier and holier than before.

Forgive me Lover for I have sinned.
I allowed the influence of shadows,
The paranoid twists and bends,
And the fear of falling apart
To shake the foundations of
My head and heart.

I write this in penitence,
To the only gods that I truly worship;
Our love, and you, my Lover.
I offer this as a form of prayer,
As part of the wider works of my worship,
Every one of them dedicated to you.

The word “Lover”
With all its societal connotations
Never made much sense to me,
Until I fell in love with you.

I still remember how it felt
When we watched that performance
Together;
Somehow frozen in the memory
As it was being made,
Suspended beautifully in time,
Just like the sheets of paper
That Taylor had scattered
In the wind.

I remember my heart
Pumping joyfully,
Full of life;
Blessedly and peacefully
Feeling as though I was right
Where I was supposed to be,
Because I was with you.

You can always go where I go,
We can always be that close,
And you can have every summer
That remains in our lifetime.

Like my palimpsest tattoo,
We can grow,
Or we can change,
But we will always
Truly be “lover”
To one another.

Though I can’t always
Give you fancy things,
You will always have -
My love,
                                  My heart,
My hand,
                                  My soul,
And I would still
Marry you with paper rings
In a heartbeat.

So please;
Be my lover baby,
                                  Be my soulmate
Be my best friend,
                                  Be my wife,
For this year and for all years to come.

And I will be yours
Until the world blows up,
Until the sun swallows the earth,
Until we return to stardust,
Until I find you in the next life,
And in every life beyond.

Days and nights have passed
Feeling rudderless and adrift,
With the chaotic swell
Of misspoken words
And disordered thoughts,
Coalescing in my brain.

It’s hard to weather a storm
And navigate troubled waters,
Even for the most experienced
Or intuitive of mental sailors,
Let alone without their soulmate,
Who is always there to guide them.

Sometimes I lose my bearings
And get spun out way off course,
Leading me straight into harm’s way.
Sometimes that treacherous path
Causes more harm to those nearby,
Than to my own ignorant vessel.

Once the ship has cleared the maelstrom,
With destruction and pain in its wake,
I pray to the one God that matters most,
In the hopes that reorientation
Hasn’t come too late for us
To find peaceful seas again.

The hours without you
Are long and lonesome.
My brain starts to itch,
My heart starts to ache,
My soul starts to pine,
For you are not here with me.

The days are so long,
The nights longer still,
And I miss you,
And mourn you,
Until the very second
We return to each other.

Long nights and deep conversations
Were the bedrock of our love.
No matter what stage we were at,
And no matter what state we were in,
The words would find their way out of us.
Together we would use them
To forge a beautiful understanding
Of one another’s lives, loves, loathes,
And a litany of everything in between.

With a base like that,
How could we not fall in love?
The deepest, darkest corners of our souls
Had stared directly into one another,
Before embracing and passionately
Enveloping every inch of each other.

No history, no hurt, no desire, no despair
Was too much for either one of us.
We saw the sum of each other’s parts
In microscopic detail,
With no scar left unseen.

We held one another,
Pressed our foreheads brain to brain,
Looked deep through our eyes
Into each other’s souls
And we said “You are PERFECT”
Before sealing it with a kiss.

That, more than anything else,
Is the story of us and how we started.
No matter how much new ground
We have discovered within ourselves,
Or in each other throughout the years,
We still tell each other we are PERFECT,
And that is truly said with love.

That’s why I know that we will make it.
No matter what lays behind us,
Or what may lay ahead;
I know that you are PERFECT,
You let me know that I am PERFECT too,
So I know everything is going to be alright.

Consciousness glows bright and beautiful,
Like Will o Wisps within the brain,
Chasing, fleeing, circling ever onward,
Perpetual motion of our connection.

Time stands still and stretches forever,
Each moment both fleeting and eternal,
A natural consequence of being so alive,
Speaking and thinking with the soul.

Intensity, clarity, unity, energy, sensation,
We have heightened in our new perception,
Upgrading our experience of this lifetime,
And it’s so nice being here with you.

My mouth can get the better of me
When my brain pops off
Without a safety catch.
The words come out malformed
And misaligned,
In spite of my true feelings and intentions.

The words of that great bard
Ed Sheehan echo in the aftermath -
“Trust and respect is what we do this for”.
And although we also share
So much more than that together,
I always regret when my love forgets
To carry those two core principles
That we worked so hard to establish.

I owe you better behaviour
Than ever forgetting that.
And although Emmanuel Kant
Does not dictate the terms of our love,
We owe each other a better love
Than I gave to you in those moments.

So here I am, and here it is -
I love you,and I’m sorry.
Despite your insistences,
I am often not perfect,
And it is important to acknowledge that,
So that I can work towards
Being perfect for you,
In the manner that we both understand.

All that I ever find myself wanting
To improve on and achieve in this life,
Is anything that will allow me
To build a better life for us,
And to be a better man,
For you and you alone.

I never thought I’d find myself praying
All these years after giving it up,
But if there is a God in this world,
Then the most beautiful gift
He has ever blessed me with
Is to be known and be loved by you.

I swear that I will fall in contrition,
Offer my words and my heart every day,
If it will bring happiness, peace, and love.
And if there is no God above,
I couldn’t be the least bit phased,
Because I would still pray to you, my love,
And have them answered every day.

From the moment I met you,
I was already your loyal subject.
The love and light within us shone
With such familiar intensity,
It was like they had always known
That they were going to burn together.

You may have had many hearts before,
But none had ever felt a love like this;
Both Harlequin and Joker alike,
Stripped bare as servant and fool,
Who would do most anything
For my Queen of Hearts.

My heart, my body, my mind, and my soul;
All are yours if you would have them,
My Lady Columbine.
Consider these words, and all that follow,
To be my offerings of eternal fealty,
With the hope any maiming will be gentle.

You came into my life
At such an unexpected moment,
Somehow the perfect person
When I needed someone to talk to
As though I had known them
For my whole life.

Years later I returned to your life
At such a critical moment,
Somehow exactly what you needed
Bringing with me
Sedation, stimulation, conversation
And the long forgotten love.

When we brought our lives together,
Nothing could have prepared me
For just how much energy
Would surge through the chapters
In the story of our life together,
Although it honestly wasn’t a surprise.

From the moment we moved in
To our first cozy little nest,
We were all systems go.
Living absolutely everything to the fullest,
Whether it was simple domestic bliss,
Or ***, drugs, and rock and roll.

Some might call it a rollercoaster,
But we would think of it
As a fast and furious drive
Through cities and mountains,
Blanketed with Huon Valley fog,
That we would feel our way through.

No matter how wild the ride gets,
I wouldn’t trade this life with you
For absolutely anything.
I’ll forever be your lover,
And will go with you anywhere,
Your ride or die every night every day.

The tips of my fingers
Can’t help my continually tell me,
As my eyes can’t help but notice,
Just how luck I truly am.

Smooth as silk,
Soft as shea butter,
White as the freshest milk,
Your skin stretches before me.
My fingertips wander,
Slowly and serenely exploring
Every delicate and delightful inch
Of the most beautiful form
God has ever conceived.

My eyes cast their gaze over you,
Over every secret and sacred patch of skin
That we both know I love.

Like the line where your thigh crests;
There is the slightest crevice
Before your pelvis begins.
It’s such a sensual textural sensation,
That shifting surface of your skin.
To me, that’s how love feels.

Or the skin pulled tight
On the sides of your hips,
Your perfect cheek adding a little jiggle;
Just the right amount of volume and tension
For my hands to grab and hold,
Or shake with ownership and intention.

And, of course, that patch of skin
To the side of each breast,
Where it first meets and joins your ribs.
I’ve never felt anything else quite like it,
And if there is a heaven,
I hope it feels even half as good,
Or looks half as beautiful,
As that most holy ground
That I first dubbed “Sacred Skin”.