"I'd like to be a fly on the wall," you say.
Would you?
Would you really like to be privy to all
that drama and intrigue, without ever being noticed?
Sounds nice, I suppose.
But I'll let you in on a little secret-
That, my dears, is false advertising.
Truth is, people always notice flies
They just choose to ignore them
And lower their voices when you buzz by on sugar-spun wings of self-confidence-
Maybe it's just all in your head
Maybe you've misinterpreted things-behind kaleidoscope eyes
It always looks like there are more of them than you.

So you gain confidence
You hover on the fringes of their circle
And drone out a low hum of 'what've you been up to today?'
Or 'how're you?'
Or 'long day, huh?'
The response is offhand
A verbal flick of the wrist
Batting the ball back into your conversational court
Because coming at you with a fly swatter
Or a rolled up Cosmo magazine
Takes more effort than they're willing to give.

You buzz about some more
Hoping maybe the silence will entice them to engage
But no,
They can't hear your buzzing
Or they won't.
So instead you stand
Fly on the wall
Content with watching the light catch your wings
Repeatedly wringing your hands near your face
In a way they probably think is malevolent
I promise I'm not plotting-
I'm just juggling the weight of my loneliness
Maybe if I shift it from one palm to another
Somehow I will lighten the load.

Take comfort in this, little fly-
The sun makes your wings iridescent
And even though they'll never get close enough to see that, you can.
It's not a trick of the light
Your fractal eyes do not deceive you-
They are duplicate.

You're obsessed with being a unit because you never feel whole
Soul sullied by the deceit of past flames
Betrayed by the boredom and apathy of she with crimson hair
Why do you care if I’m alone right now?
Why do you care if I’m fraternising with newfound friends of the male gender
Bending me till I break down in tears and ask for forgiveness for sins I did not commit
And offences with heavier burdens than they are due
Forgive me Father, for I have skinned my knees on repeated apologies until my lips are chapped and raw
Until I began to see how my God couldn’t possibly love me
Until a smile was all it took to intoxicate me into another winner-takes-all verbal brawl
Until I learnt to scrawl the ten commandments into my skull
Thou shalt not choose your new friends, for you are too naive, consult me
Thou shalt not lie with anyone other than me, I’d rather you didn’t sleep
Thou shalt not talk to men other than to exchange pleasantries, I’d rather you didn’t breathe
Thou shalt not choose career opportunities that could take you away from me
Thou shalt not
Thou shalt not
Thou shalt not
I see you broken and bleeding on a cross and you whisper, “how could you do this to me?
I died for your sins
I died for your sins
I let the light in and I died for your sins.”
Enough!
I will make my own religion
One that breathes rose petals among the barbs
Armed with the knowledge of what worship should be
And you told me I must learn to pray on my knees,
But tell me:
If you took me to the altar,
How much life would I have to sacrifice
For this all-consuming, greedy god
Of love?

What makes a good poem?
Is it the rhythm? The structure? The carefully placed similes like dog treats and the restricted use of rhetorical questions?
Oh.
If that's the case,
I think I failed the test.
Oh please! Don't leave! Let me try this again!

(A cough to clear the throat)
Ha-HEM.

When one writes iambic pentameter
Doth that make his good prose the worthier then?

...No?

If I write a witty couplet in a rhyme
Does that make this utter **** more worth your time?

Have I got the tempo right?
I need an exclamatory tone!
Rhyming feels better somehow
But it doesn't make trombone.

My jittery jilted stream-of-consciousness different-line-length punctuation-less word-***** onto a page-
Pause for breath-
Can never match the likes of Donne or Keats;
But I've bled my soul and fire onto this page
And surely, that is worth more than conceits?

A ******* the train with witch's hair and dark eyes
Stared at me as if I was hiding a secret in the curve of my lip
Or the space between my eyebrows
Or in whirlpool-pupils
I wonder if there is something of the occult in the way I walk
Like a dead woman who adores the crows that pick at her bone marrow
Is there something in the hollows of my eyes that suggests
I am not afraid of the demons summoned to hunt me down
On my morning commute?

I love
that you
love

The things
that you
love

Even if I don't

Could you do the same for me?

If yes

What great lovers
we
could
be....

My god, you've finally done it.
I'm lost for words.
Me! Lost for words!

Words have always been my friends,
My tools,
Working for me when they would work for no one else.
I'd pluck perfect prose out of the air before me
Words curling luxuriously like cats around my writing hand
They seemed standoffish to others
But I was the Cat-whisperer of creative composition
My magic was language
I have personified pain
Allegorised anger
Sensationalised sadness
But when it comes to your love
I must use the words of another
For I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.

Why?
I want to give you the gift of my words,
For they are the only thing I have left to give,
My heart was always yours, even before we knew
How well we fit.

When talking on any other subject
I find it hard to stop
But when it comes to you,
My silver tongue turns to lead
Because you are the one thing I cannot articulate
How can I explain that when I look up to the sky I search for the colour of your eyes but I can never find it
That falling in love with you was like falling in love with a sunset
That the way you look at me feels as if, for the first time, I am a girl worth writing a story about.

People have put these sentiments into much better words than I ever could
And I love you always seemed enough before
But how can that crescendo of emotion I feel-
And the constant gentle waves that lap the seashores of my mind,
For what is love if only felt in passion not in anger-
Be summarised in three short words?

You know me.
I like to compartmentalise,
Categorise,
Have a name and a meaning for everything I do,
A consolation prize from society-
Sure you're weird, but others are too,
From my sexuality to my star sign
My life is neatly noted
With post its and labels
An explanation for everything
An Oxford dictionary definition for anyone who sticks around long enough to care
I like to pretend I don't do it
But I do.

You were the first person to make me realise:
There are some things
Beyond language.