five minutes can fit
a magnum opus of sound
between them
so believe me when i say
this
five minutes can make
a shotgun out of our two
glances
like the thickness of honey
squirted into a glass
five minutes are viscous
slowing time into drips that
entrench sweet shrapnel
of this miracle bullet
in our hearts and our
heads.

five minutes
between us

we're in love and we're
dead.

home was grandiose in the poems
so it didn't exist.
it had to be fantasy
where there weren't tears on your tuxedo
but the alcohol stains of acceptance. and love?
love couldn't fly away on an aeroplane;
love stayed.
and clouds didn't swell into
empty promises; they
gathered their things and rained.
yes, you don't believe in home anymore
but god, you miss it.
so you'll drink beer at the ballet and pretend
that home is in the poems you've written today.

i thought

i was more his
than my mother's

as he shouted at me
as i shouted
to him

lost
behind angry.

la poésie est une manière de créer la
distance

où l'amour
entre nous
est trop pur

you do not need to fit in their beautiful
because it lies
that one size fits all.

you were not made
so powerfully, so tenderly,
so naturally
to smooth yourself into
a magazine cutout.

remember
you are not a puzzle piece.
the only place you need to fit
is inside that skin of yours.

let me tell you
the sky was a piece of cardboard.
i was 16, painting
it black.
something precocious.
a beginner at beautiful.

i sat under this night i created,
waiting for someone like you
to nod and hold my my head and
tell me, tell me, tell me
you're it, you're all the ocean rushed into one
you're it.

oh i never believed in you.
nor the black night which was just black
cardboard but you
came along anyway -
ambling in and i didn't understand
if you were carrying light bulbs or not
whether they were burnt out or not,
whether this was still darkness.

but we talked.
and spoke and thought and
talked. we talked.
our words became
pinholes
pricked into the cardboard.

and i saw it then
for what it was
but i tried to hold the darkness, tried
to pull the blindfold tighter.
i saw it

a blackboard
dotted with white chalk.
the sequins on my birthday frock.
handfuls of glitter
spilling through a net.
i saw.

how we filled the night with stars.
how we didn't know what it was.

yet we wrote
we would remember.
how strange, how rare, how true.
our hands enfolded
we punched the roof.

look,
a hole.
some light.

a moon.

let me tell you
the sky in fact is
blue.