the end of the semester matched with the cold
school was plain and the fields in our eyes
were white

we wrote essays on idealism for the A
planning with spontaneity
craving the warmth made;
snowless trees or eastern timber
the evitable obscured; thick, surreal, mouths
wit turned clueless, so to pretend
almost taken for imagined oaths expressing
willed waking

when wonder expels our innermosts,
forgiving our aforementions
pure window secrets connect the maps
stretched tight over each thought

-c.j.

platonic autumn, I'll never forget it
the waxing cold and waning patience-
the other whom I thought was timely
and exactly mine
escaped his cell in a right way but
turned out to be a criminal, he who
stole my heart and planted his ideology
in, writing little novels recalling the start

he escaped because I let him
and you, you were always there
you were there when he wasn't
warning me against falling for the
notorious figure, the superficial god
letting me speak and listening to my
rambling about my stupidity once
it all became clear, the awful hoax
autumn became winter, when I was
with you most

the clock in your room reads six thirty,
never moving, but of course, time has passed,
and fooled and mesmerised and changed us,
and everything

-c.j.

my life was hell, you know that
but you make me feel like I matter
maybe in luckless fights, maybe mistakes
yet better than killing yearnings
how we listen, mercifully
my chest is swelling, but in a good way
and I look you in the eyes and say

I'm in love with you, I'm in love with you
and you told me you love me, too

you have put me through both heaven and hell
and I have come to believe that every minute
of it was worth it

-c.j.

go ahead and act like
we aren't all synaesthesiacs
like the colours don't remind
and numbers don't become
we can deny our tendencies,
our clingings
as if the monochromatic
one-dimension will get
us through

-c.j.

she descends the stairs
and he remains on the landing
both linger, telepathetic moments
written on that invisible wall
with intimate totals of wonder
militant, the outside try to terrify,
to augment the doubt
lengthen the halves- but
all superstition dies in that second

-c.j.

we defy the cold times
tethered, crowned, together, deep winter
a kinder resemblance, I say
severed illusions ricochet,
kindling a watercolour
distance tightens caresses tonight
to creep, to dance
we will do it all
remembering every dim light

-c.j.

narrow couch to lay across
carpet for stepping and losing loss

walls around to capture chords
roof above to hear our words

eyes to speak and hands to touch
mouths that move and lips that hush

ears that yearn and lungs that wait
arms that hold and smiles a little late

songs that know and films that show
confessions that cause our hearts to glow

-c.j.