make ends meet

we live our lives waiting to die
        they say
i'm living my life,
 waiting for you
                          (is that a kind of death, too?)

but isn't it morbid,
   to start with the end?

but what are you and me
  but a collection of loose moments
and words
    and touches

      and accidents? (i didn't mean to love you
                               you don't mean to let me.)

should i talk instead about how you
feel like
             sunlight
taste like
                the rain
                on my skin? does that make it easier for you?

(we have enough endings by now
                 to start something new.)

racing

spectres haunt my peripheries
as the road coughs up dirt(

there's a pulse racing
between my fingertips
but it's n
ot yours.)

the finish line is here
dangling over the edge of a cliff.

                                                       some leap of faith.

hooded

sunburnt scarlet skies
fleeing as fierce
emerals emerge
heralding the hues
of sapphire to sink in.

sienna eyes drinking in,
flooding with cut glass,
cool hard translucence
against leather against skin.

earthy work boots planted
firmly on inky stretch of metal,
headlight eyes flickering shut
reprieve from the thousand star
glare.

kiss-starved lips pucker up
to wrap around the bottle neck,
expectant gushing, bland, bitter
beer,
intoxicated.

tipped back, black waterfall,
curls tumble over,
pale column as an altar offering,
breaths leaving like smog,
like prayers form a cynic.

lacquered nails
tap out the low, lusty
lumbering drumbeats,
light movement on
the sleek, slick
'67 chevy impala.

harp song
carries the melody away
drumbeats
out of
place.

sunburnt sienna eyes
flicker shut
as red recedes
golden pendulum swinging
dragging a curtain of almost cobalt
more like peacocks
fanning out
yellow blurs like stars
tormenting.

snow angels

i'm drawin' little snow angels
on your frosty windows

you've got the A/C on high
and the radio's nothing but static

each raindrop thuds against my fingers
and my pulse, in venn

your misty exhalation brushes across my bare legs
little ghost kisses as you switch the dial from FM to off

i burrow into my cocoon of cotton and candy and cutting words
and flowers and elegance and dior flood the air

your lips, as red as my eyes, press thin to stop a litany of my name,
and a little golden shackle, glares at me.

burnt opals

liquid sapphire drips away into
a blood red ruby
bevelled burning opal
(dips and furrows darkened
by the opaque night)
sneaking down to meet
jagged jutting topaz
rays tumbling over each other
to press fleeting, shy kisses
burning opals
illuminated.

and liquid sapphire drips away
                                              away
                                                      away
                                                                                                  away
as blood red ruby
floods the sky.

jumping in puddles

moonlight's stifled by the choking curtains,
and it's something like love, something like heartache,
that curls around my heart, curls around my thighs.

i think, if i could bottle up all the empty wishes i had for you,
the pacific would look like a puddle.

reflect. then deflect

i've got shards of glass and silver where my soul should be,
and whenever someone smiles, it's not really me they see.

you shield your smiles behind closed lips and closed eyes,

eyes are the windows to the soul

and your smiles are light



and i curl in to hide this emptiness.

glass cuts,

and it cuts deep.

yellow brick road

sometimes, i think if i squint hard enough,

i'll be able to see a road from here to you

materialise out of the ground. 

but then, i squint

too hard and the world is dark as my eyes shut

and i get too scared to open them again, especially

when i can feel these dark, shadow-folded creatures,

baring teeth and claws and talons and hate, waiting for

me in the edges of my peripheries. 

my love is bright, brighter than the stars and they'll

lead you home. but i am endlessly lost in darkness,

forever wandering, afraid and without light;

you don't
      can't
      won't love me, no matter how much i want
                                                           need
                                                           plead you to.

shall i compare thee to a summer's night?

(for the earthgoddess. i love you and keep strong.)

this is easy, you think, and purse your lips.
pillows are deppilf to the cool side as you press your feverish skin,
and you're sure you can't sleep tonight.

it doesn't take much to forget, you reckon, as red strands caress your cheek.
push them away and huff some more, soles (souls) of your feet pad-padding against linoleum ground,
his voice and hands follow achingly in your steps, thick molasses stretching out along your shadows.

you still kind of love him, you admit, and drink freezing, condensing water,
it's not that which drips steadily onto the table in front of you and each droplet shows you a thousand moons;
the stars are dead, long before you see them.

dear dryad daughter, time's a-tickin'

(for thedreamer)

-tick
        there's a grandfather clock adorned in twisting oak,
        and it looms above you, ancient, mad and menacing,
                                                                                       -tock,
tick-
        the pendulum's burnished edge reflects his g-g-green
        eyes and it swings serenely from one side to the o-
        ther like conversation and banter 'tween you should,
                                                                                      -tock,
tick-
        there's clear glass covering the gold as hands worry
        away across a glinting face and you've always been
        a tad transparent to those who know how to look,
                                                                                      -tock,
tick-
        marble floors just create a thousand overlapping
        shadows, parts of his personality you never ever
        wanted to see; he walks away, the best things end.
                                                                                      -tock,
tick-
        there's a grandfather clock adorned in twisting oak,
        and it looms above you, taking up it's old bad-paid
        job; it looms above you and shields you from the
        world.
                                                                                      -tock.

"i think we need to get that clock fixed."
"no, leave it. it's always been like that."

walk away

(for thedreamer, pour ma belle)

you watch his back,
  not because you're protective,
but because he's walking away,

his shirt is perfectly ironed -- by his mother, no doubt --
  and its a blankblankblank white,
and a cynical part of you remarks that it looks kind of like these walls that i'm trapped in,

you can still see his hair,
  feel it, even; his face once hovering inches above yours,
and your hands used to card through, smoothly; you've always had the best pokerface

there's an iloveyou somewhere in there
  but you think it's diminishing unlike the space he makes between you two, footsteps echoing like drums;
if he's not around, who can hear you fall?

possibly

you made your defences from all the leftover bitterness of her supernova-love,
and me? i break you down, break down walls made from the bright light,
reflected in your smiles
with nothing, really,
because loving
you is the
easiest
thing
.

vintage love

"please don't leave me alone..."

"i promise i won't ever leave you alone"

the sentence that echoes through everyone's mind--like a thousand voices that drown you in solitude as you huddle within yourself by yourself.

the sentence that echoes through your mind when you see them, an endless mantra because, goddamnit, you believe in nothing -- nothing -- but them,

our hearts are like g l a s s

chipped antiques stacked on dusty shelves,

no one wants.

written with thedreamer, who is awesome but - sadly - not dreamy. ;D

love you.

(kind of)

heartbreak tea

can you see that? pink and orange and red; the sky is bleeding like our hearts. meshing into dark blue, splattered with stars - not one of them shoot across the sky because we have nothing to wish for anymore.


can you smell that? smoke and fog and mist winding down our trachea, 'till our breaths are heavy with misery. it's killing heart cells too, but we have no use for those anymore.


can you feel that? grass beneath us, entwining with our fingers and hair until no one can remember where we end and where the ground begins. and the wind strokes our skin; mother nature mourns for us too.


can you hear that? a euphony of evening phoenixes rushing overhead and around us, the beat of their song bright and ashen on our lips. the moment of silence as the sun dips over the sky and life takes a breather; maybe, maybe we should too.


          do you remember making neverending
          lists of what we loved best? i wish we 
          could've sent them and i wish they'd 
          made lists for us.
                                                                    do you remember talking to me about how much
                                                                    we just wanted to run over there and scream out
                                                                    'i love you, i love you, i love you' and kiss them?
                                                                    i wish we could've done that and i wish they'd
                                                                    wanted to do it too.
          and do you remember the way we'd 
          stop breathing and thinking when
          they were around us? i love her.
                                                                    and do you remember how our horrible, scary
                                                                    days would just become perfect with one smile
                                                                    or hello and how we dreamt of them? i love him.
           i've forgotten how to smile and i just
           don't understand why i feel this hurt
           and shattered. she couldn't love me.
                                                                    i don't know what's up and down and the world
                                                                    has just stopped moving and i'll never be able to
                                                                    love anyone ever, ever again. he couldn't love me. 


can you taste that? cool and sweet and dry and bitter; it's heartbreak tea.


for c.rice
we'll watch that sunset, love.
pinky promise.

i apologize for nothing.

x

"I mean, look at her! Her chest is so huge, I feel tiny in comparison to just that."

"Yeah, you are kind of small, aren't you?"

"Is it enough?"

A hand reaches out to brush her breast and then, breathily;

"Yeah."

x

(we were so young, so naive. but you never stay like that; not for long.) 

"

    I still remember; warm brown eyes and soft gold scarves and hesitant wandering fingers.

    I told you I was lost and you said you couldn't find yourself - but we were never more lost than when we were with each other.

    I'm a coward, I'll freely admit that. You scared me, you know - terrified me. Your carefree - almost eager - attitude towards death. The ease that you patched yourself up after heartbreak. And your arrogance - arrogance that I once found ohso charming - that let you presume that I'd marry you one day and we'd have kids and I'd name the first two and you'd name the last two.

    But then, I saw it. It. The cruel, cold pleasure in your eyes as you threatened your own death; the uncaring tilt of your lips (I used to call them smiles but they're more like knives now, glinting in the light); the selfish, selfish fingers that only took and took and took.

    I'd like to tell you the truth, someday. Because...I did care about you, I did. And while I couldn't help but wish your toffee-eyes were sky-blue; that you were a bit shorter, a bit leaner - I know that you couldn't help but wish that my henna-eyes were just that bit lighter, that my hair was blonde(thenredandthenblack;whichiswhyyoustartedtalkingtomeagain) and my lips were thinner.

    Oh, yes, I used you. But you...you used me too.

"