White cotton kisses
I pretend you occupy the space of this  pillow
I remember your navy sheets
I think they kindly absorbed the blood
it was there, somewhere.
beating or gliding within walls of muscle.
This type of loving has become liquid and electrical.
It is certainly electrical.
spiky pains edging fingertips
Strands of copper threaded into the grooves of your fingerprints
It has a real colour. I don't know what that is.
It's weight fits inside your body.
It is manufactured.
Maybe the ***** triggered it.
Or the serotonin shots when I see your face.
All I have with me now is bone dry fabric and wadding

You will always be able to have what you want
Unlimited canvases of soft inner thighs and painted lips, curled hair
I saw into you and found that you will always be content
I saw this in the way you slept
Have you ever looked at someone and thought they were too attractive to ever deserve to be sad
Your cheekbones and chest, your arms and back are better than anything specifically crafted
Your words are sugar
Unbleached but naturally craving
Your voice is one of my favourite things
I don't know if I believe you when you call me beautiful
I should be too embarrassed to write you notes
I prefer your blue eyes to the sea and sky.
I would always choose to look at them over the static nature

The glass you melted and then froze in my bloodstream finally emptied out.
It peeled away fragments of fleshy tubing as it did so,
like children's stickers
The same way glue melts on top of white wood gloss paint over a summer
'Well Done's become slurred
the excess stomach acid separated it apart like chromatography

I shut my eyes and you are the colour of petrol rainbows
a scent so distinct yet chameleon
I can still smell the feelings invisible but stiffened into my lace underwear
never have I let something sit so long at the bottom of my laundry basket
it pretends to be a cradle
light shears through it like church stained glass windows
a cheap alternative to the lead filled stuff you are used to
dress making scissors sit at the bottom of a box
I ought to have courage to crunch through the wire caging.

Instead.
All I am able to clasp is balloon helium.

Read to me about things i'll never see
Imagine I'm sitting up in a hospital bed
Cradled by white cotton pillows infused with bleach
Empty clear bendy plastic cups sit neglected
My usual lipstick stains stayed in the handbag today
Your fingertip bruises decorate me instead
I once thought:
There is no better colour than the colour that they put into your eyes
That is the colour of the liquid that they have put in the drip bag
I might not be able to picture that colour, but I recognise the feeling of it entering my body
Rusty clots and mascara dust barricade it from leaving

Maybe not immediately
Or in a weeks time
But the cells of my heart muscles are becoming saturated with the juices
Becoming preserved in syrup
Seized and breathless

I knew that from the very first time I have been a can of something
Its label torn off
Unsealed and bleeding
And we both knew Duct tape couldn't keep that together
Still my hands were cupped trying to clasp
But now Its embedded under my fingernails.

Place silhouette pieces or outlines of my heart in thirty or more envelopes.
Paste each one with a new soft paintbrush which clean cream bristles. Push them into torn up fragments of clean new watercolour paper. The sharp edges feel through onto the wooden table leaving mistaken, accidental grooves. Glimmers of sawdust are ****** up into the pockets of your lungs, where they contaminated and will permanently sit.
It was a small heart, the colour of grey sky reflected on seas and carried in bloated raindrops. The texture of diamond. Carved up as easily as wax by a blunt butter knife.
The envelopes are neatly labelled with white tailors chalk powders.

To me you are smeared bright pink lipstick
An accidental exposure of flesh
The taste of peppermint chewing gum
Cigarettes in black sky.

You are alcohol induced numbness. Not needing a coat.
That long street.
Those insults.

You are a collection of wishes and stupid things.
You might be clever.
You are arguments.

It was hard only being allowed to breathe through my nose.

I don't know what you write with
I imagine it's a black biro
Or you continuously press the undo button on your laptop

Those strangers in your kitchen were nicer than you
They let me out
I wasn't going to kiss you goodbye
I wish I hadn't.

Now there are certain shades of off limits colour.

I wish I felt like clarity and nothingness, or that intangible vapour like stuff which comes off of a power washer at a car wash
in a dark car park
the car's owner absent, away shopping

You were the one who put your fingers in my mouth
I'm supposed to be embarrassed and disappointed
I am both

I suspect you are a good person
you have a sister
who you love
I bet you are different when you go home
I bet you are nice
I hope they know what you do
You are a classical easy ****

But I'm just syllables and escort clothing
For a while I quite liked that
In fact I'm proud
My friends find it funny

You liked the smell of my hair
And gradually I'm piecing these notes together
I think that if I had more crushed up note pages grinding into your back
You would have remembered me

I'm pretending that if you taste that scent again, you'll know
I still have some of you attached to the garments at the bottom of a full laundry basket