you could pretend
there’s all the time left in the world
to hold a hand
or watch her toes curl
that days are slow
in their release of hours,
there’s always one more left,
one final hour.

but time is running
and you’re quick to follow
memories are blurring
because days are slipping
and summer will become one long day,
where you started a different person,
a long day where you did everything
where you lost a thousand people
who you’d never dreamed of losing
where you found
and fought
for a thousand more
who you now dream of keeping.

if only time wasn’t running
and we were sitting
in the busy restaurant forever
or laying in an adopted bed
or wearing jumpers you never own
or driving along the infinite country roads.
we are all pretending that
another hour will follow
time is running
and we wish we could walk along forever.

sleeping in the dark
always makes me nervous;
an aversion
to curtains
i like to watch the stars
glide across the ocean of infinite nothing
hear screaming lone cars
and cats colliding
a solitary dog bark
as my mother sighs in the dark.

the sun cannot decide
if it is good enough to show
so it ducks and dives and hides
behind black clouds that will not go

you are a light breeze
and i am a complete thunderstorm
how many times have you cried?
i don't say this to misinform.
you are not mine
and now i think i'll be fine
one summer
in how many more to come?
one summer left
to just have fun

a whir heard at work
and when the lit end of a cigarette burns.
the trees are dead
and yet the doors are still open.
an atrocious haircut
such a misfortune.
hook nose talks to ill-fitting jeans,
tender child
shattering scream.
and I will not recall standing here in my twenties.
a boy will converse with me
and I realise that humanity is generally friendly
realise that hate and envy
are probably just pretending.
he drinks the water
and for a second I imagine kissing
aren't we all pretending?
how can you validate an emotion
that lurks on a spectrum
with no shared connection?

I thought I had fallen in love when I was sixteen,
He never meant a word he said
And I tried not to let
Him touch me.
Until I was on the floor
In a room I don’t visit any more.
Who knew
That things could grow
Inside of you.

clouds look like entire worlds yet explored;
they are peaking in the distance
in mountains of more
drifting off into a blue eternal
they were there.

as morning rises they gather
colliding into another
forming foamy waves
following the tides
the wind that exhales them
moving only forward.

and in the middle age of day,
after the glory of youth has passed
there is no cloud to dampen
or form shadows on your path.
just an endless azure
that strikes hope, and fear
at the inevitability
of forever.

when days wane
and bleed their golden life
the sun falls
and clouds form again, this time
to capture the falling blood
and project the colours of desire
as red, purple and blushing pink
paint the white of worlds,
don’t blink,
before the colour swirls
and darkness falls
upon this world of all.