And I feel like a shadow following submissively a long.
Unnoticed.
I make no sound, only repeating the motions I have been equipped to follow.
My manual, just empty pages because I'm not even my own person or am I?
I have no story to tell, just watching, waiting for you to write so I can follow suit.
And I follow you, everywhere you go, but every time it gets a little dark in this room I disappear.
Because you no longer need me, you no longer want me.
You just want sleep.
So I leave you to dream those dreams and I simply blend into the background.
You never notice when I'm gone and hardly at all when I'm there.
It hurts my feeling, or are these feelings yours?
The only difference is you shine bright and I don't shine at all.
You lead I follow.
And even if I wanted to lead I’d always end up falling behind again because I'm just a shadow, and shadows don't get to lead.
Am I your shadow?

Because I don't want to be...

you were a reckless tearaway arriving
to take the heat with a debt reckoning
in Sunday skies marked for duckbill clips
of dark filled entries on its balance sheet
a challenging force I felt I had to account for
a raincheck that I wanted to cash in on
before the heavens opened and blew me away
knocking at my door for a riot of rebellious
adult licence needed
love to be let in

you agree we meet outside in the gathering storm
for there's a multitude of conflicts to be resolved
stark contradictions and that's what excites
with you there's upsetting imbalance involved
upending equilibrium with blunt direct questions
and reactions like a Luddite with the mind of a librarian
so that I never quite know where you're coming from
but know the answer is next
written bold on the sheet
which has your signature on
I predict with a scrawl
but that you think
is kinda neat

"throw me every strain of emotion you can pick up"
and you do and your wake never lets me down
propelling a wet film wind machine
should I withstand its crazed delivery?

those sheets of rain that blew in
off the bay
you always try
your best to tear
across
I feel them shooing the air
into my lungs
winding up branches faster and faster
like a toy plane rubber band
dancing in my hair
this way then your way
until it stood on end
scared
to not go on and on
the way of so many plucking ideas
drawn from the spoils
of let's-play-chicken arts
found on the tables of tattoo parlours
when the shades roll down
and pages flick quickly as dices roll out
extremes in exfoliating salon sport
close shaving loose leaves off every hairpin bend
and scratching the bald patch
ever more bold
as if you liked transplanting bulbs
follicles in deep crimson beds
of eye poppy temperatures gone wavering

impossible to ignore in a flash of eye shadow
from a bouncy bobbing weaving
pony tale conductor
keen to take on electric vaults
showing me a pair of high heels
whatever
I ****** at your scurrying reins
my grasp like a wind slipping
through a shake of tussled vanes
black curls of wild abandon
whipped up into a shift dress
in shades of grey flight
centred in misplaced miss red
lipstick outline worn to a fade
over the top of the roots
rushes **** the breeze with pollination
as full on as a full Brazilian headdress
collected from a gazillion dipping flowers
a rainbow opening to shower off
it's end in privacy
high pitched screens

little cover in those shorts of ours
from a summertime blanket of rain
which you turned up to cloud my thighs
always thrown over and folding your way
ace-of-***** cards played torn
and ragged with bare laced love
thrown down with on-the-river sneers
cornered with those winking semi-colon smiles
open ended to point out the end will be fun
but I get your gusting gist in the mean time
determined to wheedle the worst in me out
which looking up is on its way now
and when the lightning will stop dancing
is a rough reckoning I'm not ready to say
but in the eye of this exciting storm
it's clear
not tissues not anything
need wipe these slate skies clean
from our trail blaze
my tearaway