Remember the summer we found each other

Hide and seek between the covers

Lip by lip we traced a path

Slumbered gently in the aftermath

Beneath gentle shadows of dusky eve

Hand on hand, and finger’s weave

Remember the summer we found each other

June shall never bear another.

If you want a man who thinks your mischief is delightful

Don’t be surprised if his hands are muddied with the blood of childhood companions

Or his mind is a closet full of broken dolls with missing eyes. 

One evening in a heady dusk of spring

A young man knocked, I let him in

Reason told me lock my doors

But 2 feet echo on the lonely floors

We drew a pot and talked a while

I bared all through an open smile

He took my hand and made a vow

Ears heard forever, his mouth said now

The winter ghosts came all too soon

12 times I cursed a turgid moon

Feet once were 2 I now hear 4

Yet more lonely than when I oped that door.

Button by button you loosen the ties

I don’t even know what I’m sorry about any more.

What is so wrong with me that I must be told each time I raise my voice

That I should instead spend my time sewing shut my lips.

Look me in the eyes and remember that I, too, hurt

I too get angry and frustrated and want to make fun

I too am childish, and sometimes I lash out.

See my face in your mirror, not a puddle.

Recognise me and love us both.

You walk toward me with purpose

Eyes burning into mine

I am afraid to blink.

The abandonment and deceit fall away

Like the dusty cobwebs from an awakening ghost

They fall, they float, the ash raining upon our feet.

My back against the wall I breathe in deeply, quietly

As though I am not quite sure if it could be my last

And you reach, you grasp my throat

Gently at first, sliding the palm of your hand up my larynx, and cup my chin

I exhale as your mouth approaches mine

Souls pass from lips to lips as you tip my chin up towards the heavens

And with a kiss you make another promise

You can not keep.

You only love me in the morning

When the muted light drapes itself delicately across my lips

And time seems suspended as we slowly wake to each other’s gentle breathing

You only love me in the morning

Before the day’s first bloom blossoms

Before time’s drumbeat pounds to the footsteps on the pavement

You only love me in the morning

When the specks of dust in the peach gleam of dawn fall like snow upon our noses

And conversations are nothing but murmurings in our semi conscious reverie

You only love me in the morning.

I’m so tired the only thing I can feel is the pulsing in my throat and behind my cheeks where the tears are shoving each other to get out first

I haven’t done a productive thing all day and yet the exhaustion in my bones and in my mind is almost unbearable

I just feel like parking my car in a pole and falling to sleep.

The hostility in this house seeps slowly into my lungs like setting concrete.

I take every breath silently, my heavy chest dragging my shoulders towards the ground, while I struggle with gravity to remain upright.

My boyfriend has fallen asleep on the old blue couch in front of the heater, the television casting shadows across his unresponsive face. It’s a steam mop infomercial, suggesting he’s been asleep for a while. I creep back up the hallway to the kitchen so as not to wake him. The loads lightens with each minute he’s unconscious. 

There is a strange smell in the kitchen, I notice as I wipe down the benches. I’ve been making chocolates all afternoon for my family for Easter. I check the dials on the stove. He’s left the oven on. 

Dishes washed, I sit down at my computer and start chipping away at my story. He takes it so personally when I slip away to write. I relish this rare opportunity for guilt free release.