In the morning, I woke up to your note on my kitchen counter-
I tore it up.
I don’t want it anymore.
I made tea, which spilt, and then I used the scraps to mop it up.

I washed the bed sheets.
I left the house and traded the kettle for an orange at the market because,
Lately that is what I love.
It was beautiful and ripe; fruit has never tasted so sweet and pure.

The next morning, I walked out into the garden before the sun.
The grass was cool and dewy between my toes.
I covered an orange seed with the soil in my palms.
It was easy. I will grow a tree. I’m glad I exist.

Last week she got so wankered she couldn’t stand,
And this is the first time I’ve spoken about it since.
I was a child again, a single mother.  
I didn’t like to think about it one bit.

I write poetry to make beautiful Rorschachs
Of the scars it leaves.

--

Last week she got so wankered she couldn’t stand.
She couldn’t face me but when she curled up in her car seat,
And allowed herself to cry under the moon,
It was like looking in a mirror.

From this poem is born ugliness.
No amount of rose-tinted beer goggles or incense could excuse it.

--

Last week she got so wankered she couldn’t stand.
Today I reach for the bottle.

Tragic poetic means to an end.
The child I wish I could hold,
Plastered into the yellow wallpaper, I thought:
I am. I am. I am.

Amidst the throb of bodies and bass, one,
The moon and chill call me.
A kind of playful peace and lightness that draws
Its fingers across my bare skin.
I crave it’s cleansing touch.

Like smoke rising, finally free and full
Of cathartic, selfish purpose.
For who watches it dance and wilt?
Who cares to miss it where it’s gone?
Ethereal by nature, does it long to feel in this realm?

In myself I write letters to no one.
The pages I would read to you.
The lyrics I would share,
So you might feel the way the words move me,
The purge I feel when I scream them.

Reverberations of truth
In places so deep and raw
They shock me. They scare me.
I want to give you this, as I give you myself.
Feel it and feel me.

Don’t forget me.
Don’t let the pain it takes to remember steal your years.
There is beauty in our hurt.
There is strength in our soul.

It’s ok to watch the moon,
To feel the cold through warm tears.
It’s ok to feel alone and comforted
By burning rainfall, scrubbing away at the aching life beneath…
You don’t need it….

I want the wind to enthral my body,
I want time to free me;
I live for life; I love internally.
Carefully kept, I wait to let go.
I’m a secret soul I want to share.
Do this for me.

“The Summer sun was not meant for boys like me and you.
Boys like us belonged to the rain.” -Benjamin Alire Saenz

Autumn to me, is the season of us:
Unmade duvets, blanketing
Cool shadow and petrichor.
Grounding and welcome. Alive.

Misspelt names on carefree coffees.
Train trip adventures. Nothing feels real;
A wash of memories I can’t recall.
I felt content to feel so.

When I was with you it was Autumn.
Spring-born leaves falling in a rush, so thrilling to see.
Like the butterflies in my stomach, finally allowed to see the sun.
When you’re not around I’m cold. Numbed.

--

You don’t remind me of Spring.
Spring is not a love that I could share, for
A time of prosperity- I toiled to grow,
Secure in a way that transcended loneliness.

Ripe, I was mine to let go and
I let you pluck; rooted deep down,
No matter how ripe the fruit, it falls raw all the same.
We longed for the fleeting sweet taste.

Aren’t the most tragic fates always the most beautiful?
Does pain make the product sweeter?
You must be left in the cold to be warmed again. And
No amount of burning in the Summer can soothe the Winter woe,

--

As Autumn comes, I curl up alone.
Aching in the comfort of corners, the arms of shadows,
I’m not numb. I wish I was. I’m trying to be.
Now it’s the season to drink and to think and

To fabricate ****** little rhymes
Alone, like I feel I’ve fabricated you.
In the early hours of the morning,
Why I can’t face another new day to taint.

Clinging desperately to book-romance so I might be lost in the pages-
Envious of the securely typed warmth that melts my molten heart.
Contorted to watch scary films, so I might feel anything but myself.
Cutting beautiful music straight through my ears.

Praying, begging to be carried off,
By the adrenaline, as my heart races,
To the cliffs and the call of the sea and the spray.
Nowhere will ever feel free enough from you.

--

All the leaves have fallen.
My fruit and life has wilted and withered.
Roots writhing, doubled over in choked sobs.
But it’s not your fault, I know that.

My trees are bare for a Winter.
I can’t even wear that hoodie anymore-
It holds too many memories,
Of duvet cuddles, Of blanketing, cool dark and petrichor.

Of a boy who never even wore it.
Of a boy I meet in my mind.
Of a boy more radiant, more loving, more nurturing than any Summer I’ve ever known,
That could never keep me warm himself.

Maybe we were not meant for Summer.
Maybe I was fated for the moon,
Just out of your reach.
A perfect pair eclipsed in the wrong time.

Maybe this is just our Autumn.
We fell in love in October,
And I know you didn’t mean to,
But you broke my heart in fall.

I wish you still thought about me.
I wish I didn’t think about you.
Would you have held my body better than he does?
Do I hold his?
For what are my arms when they long for your fulfilment again?
What is my heart? I can’t take it back.

Infatuation is such a beautiful word:
Tragically co-dependent; inherently passing.
Ships in the dark, mesmerised,
By a place better appreciated alone.

I liked to think one day we’d pass again:
Opposite train platforms like before.
A simple coffee in your hand, a book in mine.
Listening to music so loud it drowns out doubts, and dillutes reality.

There’d be a longing deep in our chests to run to the other,
The ease to fall back on train tracks,
To grab you, and to hold me,
To cry and be Past again.

You can tell me that giving me up,
Passing me was the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do-
But you never gave up your hold on me.
Deep down we both know I never stopped loving you.

At last on the platform, I never left.
I am Past. An ode to your passage away.  
Restrained to follow to you, I became lost.
Waiting for a different train to take me away.

Searching for comfort in hunger and
Living in gasps and freezing showers. --
I know I am more.
Why won’t it pass?

You exist only in the image I built of you,
And the memory you left me to cry over.
It can’t consume me. It is mine.
Maybe infatuations are so true to oneself that this is how they should stay.

It’s hard to believe that you will ever be inconsequential in my life,
You are separate from what can be.
Transcending the passage of time and place.
Your memory will forever be my first romance.

I can live with that.
I can hold onto that,
Even if I can’t hold onto you.
Please pass.