I want to move to Paris.

Rent a shabby apartment,
mattress on the floor,
five floors up,
main road buzzing.

I'll fall in love,
with a failing artist,
my neighbour,
on the train.

Curate at the gallery,
work in a bar,
write a book,
drive a taxi.

Dawn will break,
I'll have croissants,
in bed,
in corner cafes.

It's a stereotype,
a dream,

an escape.

I must stop romanticising heartbreak:
Arguments in the rain
Joni Mitchell at 3am
Burning pictures

My mind is the rolling camera on a short,
running out of film just before the resolution.

It can only get worse,
after a perfect break.

You make me feel sunburnt:
I redden at your gaze
your words make me sore
blistering at your touch.

But I always return;
the moth drawn to the light,
the festering cloud in July.

Perpetual sun spots
and dry lips,
a dizziness of the knees.

Now I know, why
they tell you to stay out of the sun.

Take this, delayed kiss
curdled at the edges.

Lipstick given to the napkins,
Garlic breath for me.

Third date, twenty minutes late.
Do you want a fourth,
Glass of wine?

You’re one of those amazingly indescribable people;
infuriatingly abstract and so intriguing to someone like me.

Like over-romanticised black coffee,
and being woken up by birdsong and dawn
after sleeping on your arm so it feels like a stolen limb,
a whole part of you is weightless, numb
and you never realised how heavy you were
until you tried picking yourself back up.

And you’re like new school shoes
and my lopsided ears that made my glasses,
tilt to one side,
so no one else saw the world like I did.

Like finding money in the grime,
of the sofas abyss, or behind the
loose tile were I’d hide gum
but then realising its counterfeit.

And yet, you were like the major C
but my strings weren’t tuned
and I left you flat.

You are like the final sunset of summer,
your profile burning in the bonfire,
the ash gluing to your eyelashes,
and your feet buried in the sand
toes peeking through
but already gone.

We all live in bubbles.
It’s transparent and good and you don’t notice
that all bubbles burst
and you’re outside
suddenly amongst, yet simultaneously alone
deafened by the bang, blinded by the spray
the stab of reality
everyone is the same
you’re not protected, praised, perfect
we’re all just standing outside
disorientated
splattered in a past we can never inflate again
to scared to step, to slip, to stumble

You’re eyes look like the morning;
golden crevices, red veins,
smoggy clouds chasing

But I only say this because my eyes look like night.

And
when i look at you it burns and repels,
we rub on each other’s edges.
But still you chase my shoelaces,
I ****** at your collar

I’ll never know what it feels like to be expected of
but in a good way I guess

Darkness accumulates where no one can see it
and there my secrets shed and leak from night.
But who can see me when you've made them
Blind.

Why ask me of the future, that unknown thing?
Nebulous abyss of dreams and crackled gramophone thoughts
But no whisper in the light burning through the patchy curtains.

Wooden desk, business shoes; both unpolished
like my answers.

How is it I know what I want but can’t describe it?
Ask me why I breathe.