The last time we spoke you told me
That you were reading a book called
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
and you also told me that you missed
Digging your fingers into my bedsheets
Or the naked skin of my back

And I remembered this today in the bookshop
When staring at me from the shelf was
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
in my right hand was selected poetry
By a filthy man called THE PLEASURES OF
THE ****** and I thought **** me
I haven’t thought of you in a while

Perhaps as a fleeting mention
Or the **** of a joke but Christ
Here I am thinking of you sitting on your bed
In the evenings, having come home
From studying books all day like
A smart ****** sitting on your bed and reading
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

So I picked up a copy to go with
My Bukowski and walked to the counter
In a sombre mood, because I’d thought of you
The last thing you ever bought me
Was Bukowski, you bought me
LOVE IS A DOG FROM HELL and I read it
During my last stay in your arms
Cradling caressing and ******* like lovers

I walked out the bookshop
With two new books and a feeling
You get when you recall a fleeting memory
Coupled with **** me this is what happens
To my poetry when I read Charles Bukowski.
I wonder how you are, if you finished it
What did you think? And staring at
Text thrown up onto a screen I think
This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever written.

Dark mountains and
stalactite tears
blending into cave
marks on the wall.
A funeral? But
warmth and belonging
and a community
of travel, hope, legacy.
Footprints on the ground.

If I could go into my mind
Walk around
It would look like
A cute little bookshop
Old and rustic
Books overflowing on shelves
All containing the knowledge my mind holds
A few cobwebs
In high up places
Overstuffed chairs
Made for comfort
When I need it
I imagine an older lady
In charge of the store
Wise for my age
The thoughts of
An 80 year old
In a 14 year old's body
When I was younger
It was probably like the children's section
Pictures filled my mind
Giving me the imagination
To keep my innocence
For as long as I did
My mom would say
That a 36 year old
Ran the shop then
And I, the 7 year old
Was a common costumer

I wish I could
Just live in my mind
And not have to interact
With the outside world

Sometimes I like to think
The boys that I get infatuated with
Will visit my little bookstore
And search the shelves
While I hide in an overstuffed chair
And admire them from the distance

I could go on forever
With this metaphor
Of my mind
So I won’t

While those who read this
Get a quick glimpse
Into my bookshop
And if they look hard enough
They can see the dark haired girl
With a smattering of freckles
Sunk into a chair
With a book in hand
And a pen in the other
As she expands her knowledge
She finishes a book
And adds it to the shelf
Another day
Another adventure

The books scent lingers on her fingers
Lightly tying up her loose ends till they read
Like Shakespeare carved on a tree for all to see.
Her lover sips her coffee with an elegance only history
Understands;

She is the girl who leans across her rhymes and reasons
And bends her binding around her waist.

She is a woman whose strength
Pauses a book store into a silent stillness;
A muse that is written across my face
As she traces the pages of their story, closing the chapters
With the bite of a lip and a touch of a cheek.

Hers recite the poetry of rosebuds blooming in a far off place.

Still she knows that next season only memories may grow, but today
The taste of her lips remind her of those yet to be sown.