I look for your name
in books-
lonely black words on yellowing pages,
in film credits-
stark white on black, when the sad song plays.
Your name on the creases of my bedsheets,
it appears to me on heavy dark nights

I was always okay walking through this world
without boys like you.
Now I cross the street to meet you
when I think I see you at traffic lights.
When they blink I think of your eyes.

I don't fall in love.
My mother always told me not to.
'Live to break hearts, not have your heart broken.'
Some day, she said, though not in words,
someone will fall in love with the space between your eyes
and the last rays of sunshine in your hair.

But walls keep them out like unwanted guests.
Cutting tongue and harsh sarcasm
keeps them at a safe distance, barely visible
behind the bricks stacked up around me.

Yet why is it now, with you
I feel these walls crumbling around me into dust...
So I put my heart in a padlocked box

Guilt keeps me quiet
when the boy with eyes like treacle
sends me words on little slips of paper
I read them and think of you
Then wish to rip them apart.

My heart beats heavy in its box,
I wait for you to arrive with the keys
to reveal the secret I won't share.
The secret I don't share
with boys like you

How long do I have to go
before I can let it out myself
and show it to you?

I take baby steps
on carpeted stairs in lecture halls,
looking for your face

Your face, your name.
Etched into my brain.

I wanted a boy I didn't have to love.
Now I want to love you with every inch of me
Every inch of my once cold heart