Inches apart in our nylon skin,
The distance electric.
You shudder in the corner of my eye
From centimetres to millimetres
But yet we do not touch.
A learning curve,
A lesson in self control
With no self involved.

Summer seems intangible
As if autumn’s been here for years.
The season becomes me:
A brown husk of what I used to be,
Falling away from you
Drifting gently downwards
Whilst you stand tall and proud,
An arching trunk.

But inside you’re rotten.
I think I always knew.
I could slice into your chest
And black would ooze
Like the infected sap
Of a diseased willow
Bending under the strain
Of your bitterness.

Yet to the eye you’re pleasant.
And your voice still rings the same
As when it rang in my ear
Under laboured breaths
Of lusts and desires.

I check myself again
And count the distance between us
Which spans across miles and eras
While you’re seated by my side.
Planes of existence
Separate dimensions
But somewhere the twain shall meet.
And I know that.

Sometimes I want to run.
This closeness is too much distance
For me to bear.
The world is my playground
But I only want your swing
And the motion does not cease,
I do not have the will to stop it.

So I keep the same rhythm
And maintain the distance
Across the inches between
Our nylon skin.