all the best things
it seems
end abruptly

a thunderstorm in summer
when the clouds suddenly disappear
spent
and the sun starts to shine

the book containing missing pages
that will never be filled
by the author
who died
peacefully
unaware
in his sleep

the sunset
falling behind the ocean
and covered by the streaming
black ink
of night

the shooting star
that you saw
disappear
before the wish
you wanted to whisper
could tumble from your lips

the song
missing the last chorus
that shattered
into a thousand pieces
of silence

the sentence
you always started
whispering
but could never finish

the phone call
that dies
in the dead of night

your birthday
lasting the swiftest
twenty four hours
why does it have to end
at 12am
(when i wasn't born at midnight?)

this poem would
too
if i were brave enough

but i'm not
so i'm ending

on you

I search for you in the late nights
at the bottom of the bottle.
I look for you in the embers striving to burn
at the end of a dying cigarette.
I ache for you in the arms of a stranger,
a man with different proportions,
a deeper voice, a rougher face.

I’m searching for you in all the places
you swore you’d never be
just like you swore you’d never leave.
But the pale hands caressing your satin skin,
pale hands that weren’t mine
burn in my mind and
I wonder how I’ll ever find you in the places
you swore you’d never be
just like you lost me,
when you swore you’d never leave.

in your backyard, a summer evening, daylight dropping low behind clouds and trees on the horizon, and light from the kitchen window illuminating a slanted square of freshly cut lawn. you and i, we drew as far back from your house with your parents and the rest of the world as we could, hidden in the far corners where we couldn’t be seen, leaning against the fence and smoking cigarettes amongst your mum’s rosebushes. this is where we liked it. this is where we filled fancy glasses and sipped stolen champagne - or you sipped and i quietly poured most of it into the garden, wondering how much wine it would take before it started killing the plants - and contemplated what we’d do with the rest of our days.
i had some ideas, and they all included you.