Recently I heard that in Spain they changed the word ‘marriage’
From permanent tense to temporary
That worries me
But everybody’s so rapidly changing
And love couldn’t possibly stay ‘unconditional’
You shouldn’t love out of fear
Maybe nobody is ‘meant to be’
No ‘soulmates’
Nor ‘fate’
Not that I ever believed in those fairy-tale yarns
But I perhaps enjoy the idea
Of somebody forever finding me somewhat
Tolerable
But now we’re accepting
That everything is terrifyingly perishable
And that is a very scary thought,
Emphasising, when you think about it
A reminder
That
Every
Living
Creature
On Earth
Dies
A   l   o   n    e

Do you still recall my touch?
How I played with your dainty fingers and
traced murals of dreams on your palm?
I wonder how it feels now,
like venom running through your veins.
I am the poison that your parents used warn you about as a child-
pure, unadulterated blight in alluring hourglass bottles.
Magnetic spectrums of colour,
mimicking spilled petrol,
enrapturing naive, starry-eyed souls
oblivious to the threat I pose.
The realisation; too late.
I destroy you,
leaving you feeling the rush of my affection
but innocently unaware I have forsaken you.
Neglected.
And, oh, how you’re addicted.
The destructive euphoria with which I intoxicate you,
mesmerised by the dilated eye of the magnified dust devil.
Cursed by my breath-taking, malevolent ‘love’