it felt strange sleeping in a place where you had existed for so long.
me lying there wondering how we had come so far from the time where
you loved me – and i staring up at the photo of you by the door feeling
like a stranger. an intruder staring into your blank eyes, finally
seeing a vision of hopelessness for the first time.
how sober time can make us…
unrecognisable you, staring down at me.
a glimpse of your past or my future – was i right to come?
Wind me up
Like a vine
Around you close.
Weave your limbs through me
And turn the sky a Technicolor grey.
Fill me with your milkshake–
So blue.
Sink like syrup into our gate
Break the lock, let no one in–
Climb into us
Our flat so warm
Our future now here
Our plans realized.
Recovery feels like purging myself from an
Endless black sea.
Noon arrived
With my head above the tide
Breathing effortlessly;
Absent of any memory of you.
The light looked different this day
In Plaza Dorrego.
Trees seemed to sway –
Delicately
While the promise of
Self doubt: Abolished –
Due to your absence
Seemed exhilarating!
You –
A tragedy no more,
Us –
Completely meaningless
In my autobiography.
How contemporary freedom feels.
The other woman in your life has a sinister sense of humour.
Sometimes I lie awake at night and catch a glimpse of her making love to you as I sleep.
I travel to the other side of bed
Feeling sick that I can’t make you sweat like her. Your expression, dreamy and light
While I silently cry to an untitled track
That spells the story of my life…
The moonlight drips in.
How come I never heard this tune before?
I turn to wake you, yet you are cold and weak.
You–who think you, are stronger than I.
And I await you with a soaked towel for your head
and a kiss for a swollen tongue.
Love today
wait —
maybe tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s here —
then another gone
then
Love!
Yesterday…
yesterday’s Love,
far away
away from today
of all days
when I need it most.
Maybe tonight?
Tonight is gone —
as is my Love;
yesterday’s Love
so out of reach!
Trying to remember when
yesterday’s Love was
tomorrow’s…
If i could get back to
tomorrow
will i get my Love back?
Would tomorrow’s Love
from yesterday’s
be today’s?
Wait…
And then i wait —
and yet again wait.
And try to remember
to Love today –
catch Love today,
keep Love today,
hold Love today,
live Love today,
hope there is Love today!
That it doesn’t get lost
in yesterday
or in anticipation of tomorrow.
Wait…
A single red tulip
Beckoning me from plastic shelves
Bargained with me for my future
So I shelved out the cash.
Words dripped from my quill like fire
The streams resembled tears I had offered
In so many places
Unnoticed by you.
Arriving at the tower of Tales —
In a garden of Great
I met you at the gate.
Unchanged by your reaction,
Encouraged that you took the card
I hurried to take my seat like the Greeks
Unnerved by the bottle of bubbly apparent for the celebration I would take no part in —
So I stole my friend in the rain
And took a blue train home.
Only months later would I find strength to leave
When I found that card
Halved in your box
The writing now hidden
And the boy smiling forward, sharing the flower
You intended
Not for me.
I love you
Like paint.
You stick to me and I swirl around in it —
Your Limerick boyhood charm.
Skip to the shop
Pick up goodies for my birthday breakfast that
We failed to eat.
Your history,
My future —
I have you
And Prague.
Your preoccupation with my weight was popular,
I played into your
Dirty American tabloid —
You sold me on it.
I begged you for more
Like a junkie —
Hunger consumed me all day.
Your diatribe, so succinct and refined
I felt like the muse of your fairy tale.
Perfection
In a fabled land constructed by you
Is futile.
Still I wore your clothes
Your hair —
Your voice,
Your smell.
I even wrote your music for you —
And lost the only thing that made me unique
Myself.
you are my confetti of cherry blossoms
scattered about the pavement
adored and singularly delightful.
thoughts of you explode
during spring afternoons
like piñatas floating through the sky, wrapped in their papier-mâché of
hot air balloons filled with sprinkles.
you arrive on a saturday, tanned and beautiful
for my birthday
filled with wishes and wine
company, conversation
and kisses.
I lay in your gaff
While you fill prescriptions
Of parenting.
Soaked ashtrays were never
My story.
You found it easy to make love
In that storm
And I found you
Silent for once —
You looked holy.
You sank into Bulmers
As I cleaned the mess;
Staring desperately — knowing
This creation would one day
Be hers.
I saw a silhouette of a bird circling the stone towers above – where you rest
Days seem to drift into a lifetime you were meant to witness.
Fullness fills my spirit with every circumference you initiate —
I trace your spirit to mine
fragile, girl like
hollow from the longing of something whole you once inhabited.
Regrets fill my daydreams, and my thoughts retreat to lack of time spent with you.
Only now do I fathom how scared you must have felt —
how alone!
And the painting above, the witness to your finality
Still hangs as a reminder of you, I once loved
and now
hope to encounter again
in spirit.
drunk butterfly 