charged with fire

the sky cries through another day. I watch the people passing in their umbrellas from the window on the second floor. in the library I am clean and clear like them. quiet and calm, focused completely on something that matters. I press the keys and make new shapes in pixels on the screen. there is brief relief in passing still as someone who can be neat and give to something more than empty hollows in his heart. on the outside we can all be people. from a distance I can still be what a library wants: silent, soft, sensible.

you haven't left my mind. no surprises. a few days does little more than cover dents. I think about the rooms you fill; talking to the fish at work, waiting on the train, cooking in your kitchen, sleeping on your pillow. I think about the times we shared these spaces, little glimpses of a life I would have loved to know. the first time we met I was sous chef in your kitchen. between instruction and quick wit I was flailing for your favour, at your whim. you were lightning and I could only do my best to jump and hope. when you struck I knew that there was nothing more to wish for.

in the morning I remember you are gone. even in the dark your name is charged with fire I can't snuff. I mourn the thought of knowing you, wishing tears could be enough.

lost media

we sang into each other's mouths

and laughed

until you'd had enough

a star falls

and the party ends on your terms

with a left turn

claws

or fractures

we are buried down the hall

between this choice and the way we were

because you want what you want

and I am what I am

and what was once the same will change

like water

scars

clouds running over stars

the way we feel

do you remember when you said my eyes could make you cry?

how much did you forget?

when we would glow our names were sacred

your eyes would open in the dark

and I could see your heart

helpless and beautiful, as terrified as mine

do you remember?

does it matter if you don't

that it was too real

that you're gone?

tonight I water dead trees

and the hollow with my tears

you are nowhere I have been

having known me for a moment

in the nettles

where old scars wouldn’t matter

and we could lie and burn together

I missed you before you left and all the gold was gone

thanking you for something

with your helmet on

leaving to become another lost weekend to mourn

without you only memory

vacant dreaming

photos, poetry, and song

frail evidence of what you wanted

a bed where we belonged

lost media forever

if forever wasn't wrong.

thank you

plans change without warning: you can’t stay for dinner or be here anymore. once more I feel pathetic having already bought ingredients. I am sitting on my bed and you are stretching on my floor. you did this the last time you were here. we'd woken up together for the last time. you were wearing my pyjamas and reached for my guitar to sing a song. my love is mine, all mine. the night before you'd called me yours. we were glowing and I told you that I loved this, that I loved being yours. I saw your heart in your eyes. you could have pulled mine from my chest and seen that they were beating for each other. you told me you had missed me. it had only been five days.

when you start to break this I ask if you could sit with me on the bed. I remember you saying how safe you felt here. afternoon sun is pouring through the windows over carpet over you. you let me catch your eyes and I wish you weren't so beautiful. 'I think we should stop...' of course. I ask when you knew that this was what you wanted. not long, maybe a couple of days. you say that it's not about me, or about us. you want to focus on other things. this has been lovely. we've had fun. but it's not what you need. a little too real or a little too much? you say the former though your choice implies the latter.

you ask me how I'm feeling. without knowing what to say we sit in silence and I do my best to smile. there's an offer to leave. I ask you to stay a little longer, knowing your departure means the end of our little misadventure. on my pillow I make you listen to the list of things I like about you and the way we were: your laugh, your scent, the way you made my people laugh, your singing voice, the dinners and the dancing and the other stuff I could almost swear felt sacred. remember when you asked me to never close to you. when we wrote each other poetry. when you danced for me. I love the way you would tell me your dreams and ask about mine. I love the characters we'd play together and apart. the secrets you shared and how you'd hold me when I'd let you see what I thought was ugly. the way you’d make me feel like I was something more than bones and dreams. your touch in the dark. the sound of my name on your tongue. you join in and tell me what you like and what you'll miss but I don’t want to hear it. how can this mean anything when you make the choice to close the door?

there are brief formalities: I return your locket in exchange for my tupperware. a transaction to wash away the people we've been. the little crocodile still hangs from your work bag, bought for you before we'd even met. you offer to give back the book but I plead you to keep it. and there is no way to switch off the care I feel for you. when you leave I will cry because we mattered, and you still do, and there is nothing you or I can do to change this. how many pools will I fill with these feelings when you're gone?

I tell you that I’ll miss you. you say you’ll miss me too. the last I see of you is in your helmet. the first time you saw me I was wearing mine. patterns in repeat. we hug until you let go and I thank you for your time.

the dog and the bird

sitting on the grass in the shadow of the dome I spy a bird over the shoulder of my friend. the bird is tired and beautiful; limping down the pavement, colourful plumage like the parrots from the tropics. the bird is out of place amidst the lime bikes and pigeons by the pond. the bird is trying to fly but can hardly leave the ground. a well-groomed white dog barks from a leash preventing a chase in the direction of the bird. an owner holds the line in one hand and a coffee in the other, focus stolen by another conversation. holding on tight enough he keeps the dog in order out of reflex rather than concern. he doesn't see the bird trying to fly away with broken wings.

my friend and I drink chai from cups we can't recycle, exchanging dreams and nightmares spun from time we've spent apart. with enough distance we can look at where we've been and laugh. she shows me her new tattoo (freshly inked this morning): two doves flying up her calf. the drawing is beautiful and I forget to ask if it hurts. 

in a summer dress

in my dream I'm passing through my hometown in a summer dress. I've not done this before and would I want to would know better than to do so on the island. with fewer people fewer hearts and eyes are open to the world beyond and other ways of doing things. but I don't know better in my dream.

the dress is bright and billows in the wind as I brave the gauntlet through the city. toyed with serendipity almost every passing stranger wears a face I know. those that aren't closed minds that built my closet are ghosts that loved me til they didn't. despite the recognition in their eyes no words are spoken. some sneer or shake their heads. others look away. no one stops to say hello.

in the morning I am tired and my wing stings more than yesterday. with the blinds down the room is dark and I could maybe sleep forever. my questions sit in tidy piles beside our rings. I miss your voice and don't know anything.

more together

breathing in and out of clarity each day. whatever sense I draw from misadventure only buys me dreams in which I lose myself again. when I wake I'm just as far from knowing as I was in sleep. funny to keep brushing teeth and trying. tomorrow I'll be just as lost / in need of validation / toothpaste. 

in the hall I harbour questions like weapons concealed from answers I'm afraid of. the trigger tempts and scares me, like your name / the memory of the way mine sounds on your tongue. not knowing if I want to know. too timid to move either way. even in your absence just the thought of this is fragile.

but maybe it's much smaller. and maybe it's not so dire. I can take your word for now and try to trust the way I want to. there's a world beyond the feelings we can't see. I hope we see some more together.

asteroid in passing

your words take time to find me. not wanting to be waiting I spy the moon and plant my feet into the current moment. accepting where I am I choose to pass the time with pleasant strangers in the space between. in the gaps I orbit conversations, only dipping toes, not a planet or a sun but just an asteroid in passing. there is always somewhere else to be. some nights it's nicer just to linger in the wings.

a stranger tells me we're only one night from a full moon. when I ask him what that means he doesn't have an answer. we laugh about our medication and the lack of sense we make. we both share an astigmatism. it's nice to think of something else for now.