My dear friend
My dear
I’m not sure what to make of you now -
Not a friend, to be sure;
I lost that privilege.
I understand I was so hard to love,
Or I was easy to love, but hard to hold on to
Like a wisp of smoke from a fire so bright
In a night so very dark
That it obscured
Any hint of care that still burned in me.

You were a forest fire of faith
that consumed cities in your wake,
And if I were in a satellite,
I would’ve seen you from outer space.
But I was prehistoric in my love,
Sending smoke signals showing
My adoration,
And you couldn’t see them
Against the backdrop of smog
That polluted my affection.

You were blind
and spoke through sound,
While I was mute
and spoke through sight,
And you were telling me that you heard
My pleas for help,
You were telling me that you cared.
But there was a language barrier,
My painting to your symphony,
So I couldn’t tell you how much
I appreciated everything
You had done for me.

And as the river of time bore down upon me
I may have lost all the negative in the current,
Or remembered the positive
With more grace than it deserved.
Maybe I have painted myself
as the poor and misunderstood antihero,
who returned to right their wrongs,
to write their wrongs,
when in reality, I was the villain,
who sees themself in a righteous halo
of furor, passion, and glory,
and I caused too much pain to ever
make up for any of the harm I bred.
I don’t know.

But I know that you deserve better
Than my continued silence.
So I’ll give with this apology
The embers of my passion
That burn evermore
With the knowledge that you are
Everything I could want in a friend.
You always were.
So thank you,
My dear
My dear friend.

He's cold;
Biting at the fingers
Hunting for the exposed skin
Turning it to ash
Finding sin
Nipping under the coat
He's winter,
And I witnessed the downfall of
All of the floral pieces under the sun
Watched them bend and die brittle
Dried and limp with frost
On the tips of its vanity,
Those that would cure she and he -
Wow, she
Flying in a sky filled with hazy poppies
Trailing her kids along to
Jumping fences over heartache
Inside of a globe filled with pain.

A plethora of words have been said,
erratic aimless words,
nothing daunted,
in a hasty attempt to communicate.

Why do we c o m m u n i c a t e
           to simply just
                       r  e  p  l  y?

And not
           u n d e r s t a n d
                             the meaning behind the words she cries

Broken, decayed
As they have never been the adversaries
Depressed, forlorn
As they befriended my mind
Virtuous, vigorous
As I hardly be
Frail, tenuous
As I conceal it in front of beings

Tell you my thoughts,
you will collide
Tell you my strength,
you will revile
Tell you my griefs,
you will laugh
Tell you the reason,
you already left

Like so many of us, surrounded by binaries and cold concrete,
he finds it hard to say what he feels, and I found it hard
to understand, for a while, that he loved me just as I did him,
when he never vocalised his feelings completely, and I did.
It took me some time to realise he shows them instead, and maybe
that is all the more eloquent than anything I could ever
materialise on a piece of paper filled with smeared ink.
His love manifests itself in lingering gazes and the lightest touch,
in private smiles and the softening of his eyes when I laugh.
Like a child resorts to pointing at things they cannot name,
he ends up holding close what he cannot verbalise he needs.

- “You make me happy,” I tell him. He looks vulnerable and smiles. c.s.