Tuesday Morning at Half Past Midnight

Your dress was covered in polka-dots,
the straps hanging loosely from your shoulders,
as I stood in the doorway with the light
from outside splintered across
my solemn face.

Your eyes were deep encased with
black rings from the make up you had
worn. You hadn’t expected the tears,
although we both might have known.

I didn’t know what to say
as I watched you
draped on the bed,
the epitome of sorrow.

And instead of holding you hair back
and kissing your forehead, as I
should; instead of holding your shoulders
and asking what went wrong,

I walked off to the rest of this lonely house
and left your tears with you
and my fears with me.

Experience

Life is a concrete sex embrace
wild with stars.

A blind secret,
dark as holes in the sky.
Stiff. Yesterday’s decayed women.

Free from joy and desire;
Almost always love rots men’s hearts
as only it can.
It is the colour of the young.

Pierce me. Bleed me. Moist with your kiss.
Warm. Cold. Think. Kill. Die.

But dazzle my peace,
WE WERE BORN!

Sarah McLachlan.

One phone call,
a few scattered words and phrases
here and there,
and I’m back
to 2 years ago.

A year of wasted energies.
a month of sleepless nights.
a single nights of words,
Not one with a use.

So please don’t
look this way
with your quick and eager heart
because it’s too easy
and that makes it so difficult.

The Gym

500 laps of the pool down,
the water warm and dead in my mouth.
Weights. 60, 70, 80 kilograms
Lift and drop
Lift and drop
ringing in my brain.
The constant thud of foot
on rubber, rolling
3 more kilometres
another thousand metres
rowing this sea of sweat and skin.
Just another 30 meaningless minutes on the bike.
Where am I going?
The ultimate self-defacement, mutilation.
Ever muscle burns, the salt stinging my eyes,
I’ll thunder on.

And all of this because
I can’t get you the fuck out of my head.

When words have no effect.

This is a view of you in your dark green glasses
from the little photographic plate
inside my head.
Your tight freckles
humming along,
and your short hair
that I stupidly felt the need to explain.

You’re a painter and a poet
and better than me
and I don’t blame you.
I deserve this empty house
I’m sure.

But the more I look at this little globe
and the long, dark, slick expanse
of the wet courtyard in front of me
the more I feel my distance from you.
I’ve never missed someone’s hands more.

If it weren’t raining so hard
in the small green overgrown garden out my window
I’d go outside
and hang my heart out on a rose bush to dry,
because if you looked you’d see
that it’s raining pretty heavily
in here too.

Tell me lies.

This darkness makes my heart,
makes it so much more ivoried and dark.
This emptiness of night, like we are always alone,
and ever meant to be
cast across a great expanse.
Never meant to be
together,
safe,
within each others warmth.

Perhaps.

It was a lonely night.

the other night
I cried myself to sleep.

I felt pretty miserable 
real lonely.

not your normal lonely.
the sort when it hurts
because you’re not around.

unexplainable pain and need and want.
ouch ouch ouch.

it’s the sort of pain where
you can’t do anything without them
and you have no idea if they’re thinking of you
but
you don’t think they are.

that’s why i make sure to say to you
‘remember,
someone is thinking of you’

I say that to reassure
so that you know
I’m thinking of you
and that’ll maybe make the night seem ever so slightly less dark,
this cage ever so slightly larger
and my love ever so slightly stronger.

And I am thinking of you
in one way or another
because I feel that if someone’s thinking of you
if even in the tiniest, littlest part
if even if it’s just next to nothing
it makes you feel better

like I matter a little to someone.
like I matter a little to you.

Sniff. Blink. Smile.

Everywhere I went today
you were with me.

Not in body
but in scent.
You were up to your elbows in nasal mucus.
Appologies about the head cold and the horrible image.
But you can make anything
beautiful.

You were everywhere I looked.
Swimming through my Vitreous humour.
Every turning head was yours.
Every wayward curl hiding that smile.
Oh that smile.

Everywhere I went today
you were there.
You are here.
Oh how I wish you were
here now.

–This poem is officially dedicated to slynne.
Thanks for the kind words and Happy Birthday.

Translation.

La nuit de mort, me cachent loin.
Chauffé seulement en cuisant la tasse à la vapeur.

Aucuns yeux.
Aucunes lumières.
Aucuns sentiments.

Je suis rempli au point d’éclatement