I know that I run to hide in my thoughts too much.
In my mind you love me,
In real life not so much.

Dissociation can be my monomania
But instead it's just the made up
Version of you.

Tentative tendrils of memories

encircle me today.

I eat, bathe and walk with them;

whispering sweet words;

grazing my ears with kisses

of the past.


I can feel myself weaken,

give in to your misty essence.

What place are you going to take me

to this time?

I know what images you please yourself with

are at least real.

Were real.

Not just sickly cravings, fantasies of an

escapist.

But reminiscing can be painful too.


You coalesce at the corners of my vision;

Beautiful, frail beings of floating moments.

My own ghosts;

you don’t haunt or stalk,

but drift alongside me.

Every few minutes I’ll walk through you,

and images will flood me.

Voices, colours, senses,

emotions;

a pocket of the past to relive again.


This one is fresh.

Recently swaddled and placed in storage.

How considerate of you.

To make me remember what the rapid fall

for a new love is like.

The reserved smiles, thinking you can

peek and they wouldn’t see.

The shy touches, always longing for something

heated.

The small toss and throw, between words,

gestures, hands and hearts and lips aching to

be closer.


The world vanished,

****** into its own black hole,

when I laid eyes on you.

I melted.

Seeped into warm, golden streams.

You left me feeling bold, my

desire unchallenged;

you pulled it out of me

like pulling string out of its coil.


Your arms slowly made the journey

around my slender waist;

holding me close.

I could nuzzle and cling

and I never wanted you to pull away.

Ever again.

Wrapped in each other’s warmth below the

map of stars and before

the beacons of the city,

our kiss was slow and long,

sweet,

sugary taste and warming.

A fire at the first spark, rising from ash.


Ghost, why trail me like this?

On those days I have yet to see him,

I still crave him.

You remind me of that lingering pull.

I sit on that bench where we embraced,

but he isn’t there.

All I know is you ghost.

Hovering beside me,

a still, pale presence moulding

into him.

But you are empty.

A white spectre leaving me wanting.


Stop shedding my memories before me

like dead skin.

They were.

Stop reminding me.

I’m still left yearning after your visit

to my mind.

Rooting through the archives,

trudging through my still weeping pieces.


I pull away, and your vision collapses.

Finally you fade into nothing.

I can be at peace without your play.

Dreaming with my eyes open.

I can see the mist, a swirling blanket overhead.

I feel like a taut string, coiled wire, sips of breath

between parched lips.


Patches. Puzzle pieces swimming in my vision,

an unruly tangle of images,

slowly being filled, linked from the borders in.

The ceiling hanging above becomes a screen;

roll the film, let’s see what has become of us.


I can’t hold on to you,

The dream canopy above me is like water,

one disturbance sends you rippling away.

I feel immersed in your presence when it clearly

isn’t there.

The mist, smokey tendrils reaching for my skin;

begins to thicken into fog.

So many images of you.

You montage in a cascade of colours and

you show me too much.

A torrent of raw emotion;

I watch smiles burst and tears fall;

I watch laughter radiate and anxiety creep under your skin,

I watch fatigue ride on your shoulders and anger bubble, pop, like lava.


Why are you so far away?

You glide around above, bumping across the corners of the room;

You are saying something to me. But you are mute.

Your full lips part to caress mine, but I don’t feel it.

I don’t feel anything.

And you release me and

turn

away.

You look broken;

something snapped inside after that kiss.

But I can’t ask.

You are already gone.


The mist is receding, back into the cracks in the ceiling.

I can’t make you stay.

You twist and unfurl into slight wisps of air;

gone.

I would open my eyes,

call it a bad dream,

but they are already open and empty now.