Give me a son with your soft heart
Or even your patience.
Give our children your wild curly hair
Or your open hearted smile.
So that even when we are gone, the world will find within them all of the reasons why I loved you.

I wrote a poem about love
I'm too scared to share
Lest the reader gets jealous
And jinxes my lover
I wrote a poem worth stealing
But I'm protective of it
I'll not have your observant gaze
Look beyond the words and into my life
Rather you accuse me of lies
Than to tamper with my truth
I'm possessive
Of my love
He's for my eyes only
.
You
.
Can have this instead

Like the tears of a prisoner at night
I miss you in private
Behind closed doors
And shut eyelids
I miss you like the dreams of the poor
That never go further than the roof of my house
It's been years
And my sounds have been silenced
Like a radio left on
Whilst you sleep
They think I have forgotten you
Like the death of a bird
Or a flower in the snow
But only I know
Of the void between my words
And the coldness of my fingertips

I heaved forward
Without any desire to look back
But I was yet to learn
That sounds could drift across a space
Like fire
And alight all the memories I'd hidden in the darkest corners of my mind
That hearing fireworks
And the cheer of a crowd
Could remind me of the black sky
Covering streets
Which looked like ruptured veins
And that some perfumes
Are like mines planted in our bodies
And a spray could blow up all the essence of people
I'd tried so hard to remember
That it would drag me to a past I wanted to stay in
And make me ache all over again