Toe to toe,
Breast to chest,
Your warm breathe tickling my neck,
I cant seem to keep my heart in check.

And this morning,
I woke up in utter denial
About what had happened.

But when the first rays of sunlight
Ever so subtly tickled my eyelids,
And i never felt your warm embrace,
I knew.

I knew you had moved on
greener pastures.

Tell me one thing:
When?

When was it,
That your affection for me
Became so dry, dusty and arid?
When did you soothe yourself
With purposeful amnesia,
In the case of
Unburdening your heavy conscience
Of our passionate memories?

He looked into a mirror.
He saw:
A punnet of stereotypes and problems
All untidily wrapped
in raggy, baggy clothes.

He went looking for answers.
But all he got from following people whose faces were plastered with a mask
Of indifference and apathy,
Was criticism.

Criticism that neither helped nor encouraged him,
Instead grinded him down inside.

When i close my eyes,
I can still see the glint of blue
In your eyes.
How they mesmerized me,
Laced with beauty
And danger.

I lay
With folded hands and sealed, cold eyes.
You won't hear a complaint,
Nor whimper,
Nor breath escape from these
Pale blue lips.

Icy skin,
Clad in a snowy pall.
The room is warm with candle light,
Stuffed with the comfort of the mourners.

They found my body in the trenches,
With nothing
But a glassy tear across my face
Like a shooting star,

And a smudged smile.

When your mind stumbles
across an image of her
And a smile creeps up on your face;
When her tears prompt you to take action;
When her eyes can turn water into milk
Laced with honey
with a determined gaze;
When you can't imagine a greater pleasure
Than standing there,
Liplocked with her:

You've found yourself a sweetheart.

Sometimes i wonder:
Are you out there,
Somewhere,
Craving the excitement
That came with the light brushing
Of my skin against yours?

Burning low long past midnight,
Slurring long past sunrise.

Time passed,
And so has the metaphor of you,
The perfect you,
That i seemed to cling to so hard.

But every now and then,
In a dream, or abstract fantasy,
I still see your lush lips
Muttering dreamy words.

I'm tired,
Tired of being tired.
Tired of swallowing pills
Just to get through the day.
There has to be more to life
Than this,
Right?

May God free me:
From the toxicity that was taught to me
By a dysfunctional family,
From the stagnating repetition of solitude,
From being a prisoner of my body,
And from being a slave
To depression.

Grant me strength.

I'm done crying empty tears.
My memories of you
Lay by the riverside
Next to the grave of the fireflies.

Messy hair,
Sweat on your eyebrow,
With hesitant lips uttering
The words "I love you",
Morning breath with a side of drool,
Deep blue eyes, as remote and wild
As your personality.

Thats what i want to wake up next to.

My job is my passion,
I have all I need,
My wife is my life.
Truly, God has blessed me.

But one day,
I came across an old-fashioned mirror.
It was cloudy and dust-ridden.
I stood before it and could only see
An unrecognizable, blurry outline.
Strange, right?
But upon closer inspection,
There it was,
An unmistakable wraith of my younger,
Troubled and melancholic self.

I saw him trapped and suppressed
By the insurmountable suffering
That rained down like a monsoon on him.
I felt everything he felt,
I carried the same lifeless ****** expression that he wore,
And our tears fell in tandem.

I reached out beyond the magic mirror,
I looked him dead in the eye and whispered to him that all his suffering would eventually bring him peace,
And reassured him of the existence
Of a light at the end of the seemingly-unending tunnel.

My words were cliche in the extreme,
But,
I let my sincerity, love and care
Sing a song of hope.

And by the time my song reached had reached its end,
The cloudy tears in his eyes
Began to clear.

In lieu of a sunrise,
that day we awoke to a painful knell,

As we leaned over
To steal our last look
Upon your cold face
We each anointed you with a tear.

And as we bore the weight of the casket,
With sympathetic raindrops trickling down,
And pale-brown blades of glass stuck
To our glossy black pointers,
We bore the weight
of your once great heart.

And we laid you to rest
Within the earths *****.

You remind me of the scent of fresh, green grass and rich lavender bushes
Which fills my early days,
Days of precious child-like wonder,
Before the insecurity of a broken home and dysfunction became the norm.

The sky is wailing:
He's crying, and he yells in rage.
A bolt of lightning,
Like an that incisor rips through the sky.
What terror lies beyond there?

And yet,
All i see is beauty in its rawest form.

When the storm begins to calm,
The first glimpse
Of the introverted sun,
Signals the world below the clouds
To exhale
Like a harmonious lullaby would calm
A frightened infant.

I know,
The prismatic effect of light passing through droplets of rain,
Creates a spectrum of colours to form,

And yet,
every time i see that faint rainbow
After a tenacious storm
It still feels like magic.

A cluttered room;
Dusty, empty picture frames;
Cold coffee and stale toast:
Thats all that remains of you.
Euphoria is enticing
Yet fickle as flies:
Flies that flee with the slightest stir.
From the mouth of another:
"Good morning" will never be the same,
And "goodnight" will never suffice.

If I'd known that our last goodbye
Would be our last:
I wouldn't have said goodbye at all.

The two of us
Secluded in a peaceful beach
The pungent stench of the salty sea,
The assured crashing of the waves
And the screams of gulls in the distance

I lay on my back.
I look up to see your face,
Bathed in the gentle blue
Of the sky that's mirrored in your eyes
And your hair:
Dancing in the breeze.

You come in close,
Close enough to hear my heart
Drumming its beat
Close enough to feel my breath
Close enough for our eyes to meet
And your kiss,
Warm with passion,
As i run my hand through your hair
And stroke your neck
Unending, as the sun begins to retreat.

Until then
I wait alone,
So instead of a signature,
How about i autograph these pages
With a tear?