There’s something that’s
gone now

And maybe it left
in a heartbeat

Or maybe I watched
you fly
Toward an open world
Where gravity pulled you
‘round the
edge

Until I couldn’t find
you in the twinkling
universe anymore

Maybe we were just finite
Maybe the hot, pressured
water opushed through
our crushed, ground
beans.

Maybe the cup
has been filled and all
that’s left is murky
lukewarm water.

And maybe that’s what’s scary. Or maybe what’s
scary is that I don’t even know what is missing.

Maybe
I fell in love

Maybe I looked at
you
And the wind
swept through
my stomach
And you
lit candles in
my eyes

Maybe I fell
In love

Maybe you spoke about
the world
The way the Gods
spoke about
the universe

Maybe I heard
the cosmic waterfalls
in your
Daffodil daydreams

Maybe I fell
in love

Maybe I held
your pain in the
palms of my hands
And felt the
weight of your tears
on my shoulders

Or maybe
You just,
grasped my hand
and smiled

And then

Maybe

I fell in love

Sometimes, I gaze at you
and I long to stamp
my body onto these trees
And paint my memories into
Fragile leaves that will sink
deep into this crafted terra-cotta globe

Curved
and crossed
and dotted
lines
Scattered between murky constellations
Of black holes and radio captured cosmic rainbows

I’ll confess
the sempiternal fondness
in my unabating smile
Every time
you parted my cells
and held me together
Every time
you ripped through my skin
and let me fall apart

In every moment
I simper
and shut my eyes
when your gaze weighs through me
Every time you taste
The whine
through my parted lips
before it can reach
for the empty room

I’ll stretch my arms
and swing my hips
dropping ichor onto
a saturated canvas

I’ll move with the world
As you moved with me…

Softly
Slowly
Passionately
Tempestuously

I’ll cry
and I’ll laugh
I’ll let them caress me
and I’ll let them push me away

I’ll let them praise
I’ll let them mock

I’ll take it all

I’ll draw close every glimmer of you
And before I perish,
I’ll lay myself bare
But I’ll keep you to me

For you are too gentle
Too violent
To stain this wretched,
giving earth.

[The scene is reminiscent of a long exposure time lapse. The kind where the universe is painted in streaks across the darkness above. Except, maybe, time is moving exactly as it normally would but the stars still drag through the sky as the wind drags across your skin. You’re both strewn upon the seats, in the back of an open, moving car. Swimming through the city, through the bright lights. The deep rumbles of engines and of lovers – tangled in embrace – wave. Neither of you wave back.

Instead, they’re found enmeshed with your body. With you. Their shoulder is burrowed in the junction of yours. They’ve got your right hand grazing their lips and your fingertips caught between their teeth. They’ve got one hand running lines – vocalising desires – along the curve of your leg that’s wrapped around their hip and captured between their thighs.

You’ve got your left hand nestled in between (and all around) the valleys of their coarse curls. Every so often, your fingertips grasp their earlobe and tug…slightly.

You have a sort of gentle smile on your face as you gaze down with soft adoration, and you feel your heart burst (a little) at the tenderness of this moment. This mellow, dazing, single moment of being wrapped up in each other. With the whole world ebbing and flowing around you. You are here, with them, and all that exists is this.]

“It’s so sad,
what's happening
over there.”

They say,

As they
double tap the
romanticized,
normalized,
propagated,
famine-riddled,
war-tor­n,
image of what
used to be a
nation.

“I can't do anything,
though.”

They say,

As they lounge,
in their ancient
blackbird-gilded
thrones
Coated in
percolated gold

Resting, in a castle
carved from
native marble

“This sadness makes
me tired.”

They say,

As they cast their
cerulean globes
to the ceiling
that hosts crystal
chandeliers
dripping with
privilege
Shedding light
On material exuberance
In rooms painted
in mirrors
for the pleasure
of viewing their
adorned ignorance

“Oh, that's pretty.”

They say,

As they gaze
through pellucid
barriers
at the
romanticized,
normalized,
propagated,
famine-riddled,
war-tor­n,
image of what
used to be a
nation.

“The sunset.”

They say.

One day
One day I'll write you
a poem

I'll write about your
simper
The consuming curves of your mouth
The twitches (sudden, sharp)
in your muscles
(sensations)

I'll tell the world
[empty rooms that read (mock)
my fractured whispers]
of how your chapped translators,
snuck past the
raw fissures of mine

I'll lyricise
About (ghostly) words that
were mouthed
across my skin

In (dazed) familiarity
I will (won't) recall
nights like this one
(none)
Nights where I felt.

I felt.

I'll write about
a love I've never
experienced
with a faceless
person I've never met,
only Alive
in the evolving
depths of (my) dreams
Through dwam
and deep sleep

One day
I'll carve into saturated sand
(under waves that will
greet me with the same fondness I have when I recall you)
all these
Words
that can never exist
(how can they if
you don't either?)