When I was younger
I loved tulips, but it was
because
there was a girl
holding a tulip on the cover
of a book
I loved that story
But now
I like daisies
Maybe one day my daughter’s name will be Daisy
I like them
because they are simple
they bother no one
they have their own sun at their center
and around it, many angels
make harmony
dancing to the most sublime songs

When I was a child
I played with the egg carton
scattered paperclips around the house
bottle caps
nail polish
anything
that could be a passenger
on my spaceship

Green grass,
the scent and colors of wildflowers,
and on the face, a smile that remembers springtimes
while the sun gently caresses them
and bathes them in its warmth.

White daisies
dance proudly in the breeze
as if to say:
we are happy just as we are,
and need nothing more.

Summer’s heat weaves its fingers
and adds a shade of yellow
to the canvas of beautiful plants,
excessive and merciless,
while they beg for the last drops of rain.

Something has grown quiet.
Looking at those once-lovely blades of grass
I now see
an invisible thread that binds us
in the whirlpool of memories.
At times, a weary smile appears,
accompanied by restless longing.

Moments filled with joy,
Float away like pink balloons,
Never to be seen again.

I miss those pink balloons,
The type of pink that looks terrible on curtains,
but looks good on you.

I mourn the lack of pink,
I try to find a new colour,
My new favourite colour.

It might take a while till I find it,
but I'll always remember those pink balloons.

I want to
remember every sensation
taste every word
feel every look
touch every whisper

I have honey sunshine in my mind
from when I left my shoes in your seats
said I’d grab them tomorrow,
and you, of course.

Honey drips
on a sun-blind mind’s rewind.
Sticky memories don’t spoil
they crystallize,

then golden-shine
in your lullaby eyes,
because I said
you’re mine
for the hundredth time.

Drunk, we walked west to the ocean,
drop soup and sake,
sloshing in our guts.

You would marry in twenty days.
I stayed close,
swallowing the words
that would’ve ruined it all.

In seven years,
I will have a son.
You will bury yours.
We will wonder - quietly -
if souls can be traded,
if grief moves
like a current
between blood that is not blood.

The tide was electric,
a woman waded in,
cupped bioluminescence
like an ember from the deep.

We stood apart from the others,
two men
bone-wet and wind-bit,
trying to scratch our names
into blue light,
signatures gone
before the next wave came.

I never told you the future.
I let the dark reclaim our feet.
You laughed,
drunk and perfect,
and I looked away
as the sea
turned the sand
back to stone.