You're a hardback book:
the coffee table photography type that
sits awaiting the agreeable eyes
of someone who likes what is inside.

Can I fall through into your black and white world
and stay there warm until the history books
catch up with me?

Because if I don't I fear I'll forget your face
and if you're ever on a shelf, with a Waterstones
recommendation below, and I fail to notice you
how can I ever learn again?

The rain makes your
veins look like
dark black bra straps
underneath a veil of Topshop sale items-
the bangles were bought elsewhere.
Though it's not their size that worry me,
it's what look lives within your eyes
every time you run a finger up your arm
and back down your arm again;
the charm in your slightly curling autumn leafed smile
curls a little more, turning smooth lakeside skin
into Nile-esturay wrinkles that say save me Tim.

Your red delta cheeks pulsate
in the late afternoon sun coming in on
a diagonal through the newly installed,
doesn't quite close properly, velux window;
you ran through fields only
to end up teary eyed in the kitchen
doorway threshold.

But here, here is where your river 
meets my sea, and turbulent tides
swell up to ferry us away to new coastline
continents:
forget we ever swimmed and swam,
poured sand from our shoes,
held hands and ran, and
forget we held hips on train station steps,
shared lips, left and then hid.

*When you see this you'll know it's an apology

Like a child dreaming of Christmas morning,
I am filled with anticipation upon your appearance.
I crave the thought of unwrapping you and discovering what I've always wanted.
I dream about treasuring you.
I can picture you perfectly like you are here with me.
I can feel the dawn drawing closer.
I can see our horizon making it's way across the sky.
Life has gifted you to me, and I am more than ready.

     m.h.

Fat gut of glory
Brushing her hair
Lips tainted red
Another glass of wine

she'll walk off
and you'll walk behind,
you feel like a man
and see everything in soft focus exposure
and her walking ahead, timid and feeling triumphant.
this was your first kiss
and not your last kiss
but your most important kiss;
the foundation kiss,
the scaffold kiss,
cathedral columns holding up the whispering gallery of this kiss.

or did you walk off
and she walked behind,
did she feel like a woman,
soft, warm, and kind seeing everything is a hard focus exposure?
that was her second kiss,
not her last kiss
and not her most important kiss;
it was a mill stone kiss,
a grist lipped ground-down-again kiss,
a motel-hotel-roadside chapel of cheap kisses kiss.

My parent's bed makes my back sore
But last night I came in at one
Because my father was gone and
My mother was
Crying

It's not your fault, Dad
But I want to sleep in the comfort
Of knowing what's going on

Don't let my back be sore forever
Don't leave us in the dark

Here I find myself alone again
and how stupid to have not
seen it coming, to have
ignored the undeniable truth
that everyone on Earth will
disappoint,
no matter the beautiful lies
they shove down your throat
or the millisecond moments
you allowed indulgence in,
believing they were real.

nothing is real here.

we are all made of dust,
recycled atoms and words and
phrases that we mold to our
own advantage, and who cares if
someone gets hurt in the process
because isn't that what it means
to be human?
to be full of faults and falsehoods,
and at the very center of those
sits the certainty that at the core,
we are all irrevocably,
permanently,
unquestionably,  
alone