I wish I could wax lyrical about you like I used to write sonnets about the constellations above the corner of Hyde Park where we first met the ground shaking beneath our feet and my wine drunk honesty as if we haven’t aged by a decade of disappointment waiting on the same lies we tell eachother falling out of love one letter at a time
Life is hours spent in traffic jams changing radio stations waiting for the sound of nostaliga that song that year the one that reminds you of summer of rain on clear nights a sky full of stars or the way that kiss caught you off guard
Love is Fond memories of a city we hate Conversations whispered at 3am Holding hands on Blue Boar Street on my twenty second birthday Always wishing it was summer in Regents Park that one day
Love is Crying in the car on a Wednesday morning because of distance Staring blankly at a phone screen Debating calling to hear you on the voice mail An empty side of the bed you should claim
We're the same in a way the same eyes the same bad temperament but I'm a mess you can't clean up and you hate that no lemony freshness could work on the broken hearts day dreams spilt in ink the time wasted searching for something that matters
I wish I’d kissed you in that cinema parking lot while we froze not wanting to go home I wish I’d held your hand on that walk winter sun seeping through our skin
I wish I’d told you I loved you in the front seat of your car barely able to breathe we were laughing so hard
I wish I hadn’t been scared and it didn’t still make my heart hurt that you were the best thing I could have had
There will be no other voice on the other end of the phone after that time I got fired or holding me close after I tanked that exam about the history of the European Union
No one else will be the first person I fell in love with or the first to let me down
We had our highs and more than lows than I can count but it was something spectacular for the years we had
I still think of you every October and the day we first met How much things have changed
Wanting is a strange feeling an abstract emotion that can tie you up in all sorts of ways days undercover hiding or running away from a ghost a promise something tangible
We used to lay by the window looking up at the stars pressed together on a tiny single bed listening to the people walking around upstairs talking about the dreams we had when we were sixteen and how much the world had changed since then
I used to know everything about you like you were the back of my hand just another part of me I couldn't live without but now I drink the coffee you like and forget the colour of your eyes and the way your voice sounded when you told me you loved me for the first time
We talk about the weather and our families pretending we aren't complete strangers who used to share a love story we thought we'd be telling forever and maybe it'll hurt less with passing time that the promises we made turned into lies
I want to fall in love with you all over again where it all started on that corner of Hyde Park watching the leaves change on the edge of 21 walking home in the rain living as if nothing would ever change
We are an idea in someone's head how they think we spend our mornings who they think we spend our nights with It all gets added together like a jigsaw puzzel we rationalise the pieces and parts but does it matter what they think as long as it all fits as long we're someone to someone somewhere
I would have stayed in London not given away my heart and left it with the wrong person spent a few nights on beaches under clear skies and stars in a Miami sunset haze Maybe I’d be by the sea or living the big city dream be a new version of myself a person I always wanted to be
I know the feel of summer in this town ice cream melting down our fingers bare feet on the grass by the river daring each other to jump in
Freedom starting with a final bell carrying our hopes home in a backpack with all the day dreams and doodles
Reading books about the lives we’d lead if we were adventurers exploring beyond the edges of the football field lost somewhere between fantasy and reality
Watching life pass by with the changing colours of the leaves crash landing into responsibility
Wind back the cassette to before that rainy November day to when I didn't feel lost without you holding me down keeping me anchored
I close my eyes to see the fine details the loud confidence the smell of rain on your skin the can of beer in your hand how you took my hands like a winter coat against the cold
I go back and chose an empty seat or don't talk about the traffic how glad we were it was Friday I would never have heard you laugh seen the way you look in love
We still listen to the same bands Walk the same streets And think about the same boys that broke our hearts When the only thing that mattered was the next class we had Or who kissed who by the bike sheds
When 3pm was the end of the day And we lived for every mistake we made Because it didn't matter that we hated this town And it didn't matter who we let down We'd become something bigger than Just names etched into a desk And all of the tears shed
We'd love and learn And forget
The only thing is After a decade and some change After miles away And time for it all to fade
We were addicted to strawberry creams And lemon sherbets Searching for anything with a sugar rush
Our jumpers tied around our waists Dragging textbooks and revision notes Across gravel on summer days Counting down till it would all be over
There was a world out there With dragons and knights in shining armour Or pant suits and project meetings Depending on who you asked Or who you were at the time
We wore black and talked about death Or wished the short days wouldn’t end At the back of the music block where no one would see The smell of cigarette smoke on our breath First kisses and first heart breaks were had
A life time ago but we still have strawberry creams and those lemon sherbets
We are always falling together like the waves and shore pulling apart at every opportunity but addicted to each other in a way only we know under the moonlight waiting for a sunrise on and on we go
I miss the simplicty of being yours being young in the back of class rooms in tragic classic novels with folded down pages something you always hated the songs about heartbreak autumnal sunsets champagne coloured skies perfection at the horizon
We're painfully predictable don't you think? half a decade plus some change of this same insane almost love story
We make plans we won't keep the house by the sea just simple nights on the sofa or star gazing somewhere we're just so tired and it's been so long we're all talk we always have been
We fight about nothing on the quiet days just to fill the gaps and as an excuse to make up but still there's so much radio silence screaming pining lust
I was a stargazer sky watcher full of hope tracing pictures in clouds (cats on surfboards and such) with bright sunlight or deep blue midnight until it ended with a crushing sunrise
Sometimes its feels like we're talking through train station speakerphones muffled by static and noise screaming our lungs out to no one at all while life just rolls on by disappearing under tracks with so little regard
Living is a case of accidental poisoning watching ceilings at three am dissociative days drowning in caffeine to stay awake to stay ahead as anxiety taps your shoulder an uneasy aching body always wanting more sleep appetite will to survive
I've been thinking lately about how much stress is like poison slowly shutting down your health and ability to function.
I want a Sunday morning kind of life coffee on the porch pile of pillows in bed the newspaper folded the way you always did
Those days wasted talking about heading for the coast living in the sand and sea your skin on mine in perfect pace
I want just another one of those days with ice cream on your chin and the grass between our toes the smell of lavander or honeysuckle long walks in the sun
I think about us in the dark walking the back streets in the city taking the long way home hand in hand sharing laughs and whispers full of hope
I think about us in a tiny house in the country we'd rattle about in our old age with climbing roses and rocking chairs on the porch
I think about us on lazy Sunday mornings in perfect sleep drunk silence your favourite black coffee the crossword puzzles I never finish just in a haze
I think about us and sometimes it hurts because of who we are
I like traditions reading the same book on holiday every summer watching Frasier re-runs with my morning coffee going to the same restaurant on my birthday with the same seven friends meeting at the pub on the corner for a white wine buzz before heading to the city
Crawling back to you like I do every time and promising myself I won’t
How funny it is to be fleeting, a momentary lapse in your judgement an imperfection on an otherwise pristine existence a reminder of your weakness the need to feel to connect to care
I feel like crawling out of my skin in this unseasonably warm weather summer night hazes in mid-October t-shirts and aircon and everything else that feels wrong for where we should be and how far this year’s gone