Coming undone

You’ve made me come undone

Unspool at your feet

Order replaced by chaos

Veins tangled in my ribcage

An eyeball where a knuckle should be

Is this love, I wonder

One half of my brain where my foot used to be

Is love disarray, insanity, disorder?

Dry

As I rub lotion into my too-dry skin

The brown turning whitish, grey

I remember those nights together

Your hand on my back

"You have such smooth skin"

Whenever you tell me this, I

Either give you a matter-of-fact

"It's the lotion I use"

Or laugh off the compliment,

and then kiss you

But now, those moments feel like they are

So far in the past

Like decades have passed since

Even though it's only been a few months

A few cursed months that turned

My body into an object of pity,

Indignity, aversion, malfunction

And you,

I realise that I miss you

Or perhaps,

I just miss the life I had

Back then

promiscuous

It hurt when you called me promiscuous

Not because it was so far from the truth

An accusation unwarranted, especially from you

But because you made me feel dirty

When all I wanted to do was not be lonely

When I pulled your arm around me

That one night, I wanted to feel like

I belonged with someone

And when I woke up, alone in bed

Everything just seemed so empty, so pointless

Change

Things move slowly

Like we are underwater

And a minute is no longer

Sixty seconds

Time stops when you

Hold my hand

Resumes when you

Let go

Diagnosis, I'm realising,

Takes time

It's been weeks since

Hope was crushed by

Bad news

Good news told to

Make the scary less

Scary

This changes everything

You said

I didn't think it would

But look at us now

Changed 

The last time

We talk about firsts

First kiss, first fuck, first date

Treat them as relics

Build museums for them

But what about lasts?

The last time you kissed someone

Touched them, loved them

Remembered them

Without even realising it?

'Find someone'

When my mother kept telling me to find someone,

To not be alone in life, I lashed out

Told her to leave me alone

I was so ashamed of my inability to

Make anyone want me

But today, through a keyhole, I got a glimpse of

The vulnerability that comes with a life lived alone

And understood what it has been like for her

And why she has insisted on my finding someone

It reminded me of plastic bags cutting into the skin

Of my fingers gone white from the weight of their contents

Groceries I didn't need to buy, but did to make things easier

For my mother

The heaviness makes my arms ache, my eyes water

But I can carry them because I know that

At the sound of the gate opening, closing

Or the doorbell ringing, my mother would open the door for me

Carry some of the bags inside

But what happens when she is no longer here

For if nature has it's way, she will leave me someday

Who will then open the door for me? Relieve me of those heavy bags?

Who will be here to love me?

Little boxes

You told me you lived out of boxes as a kid

Your parents moved around a lot

I felt almost sorry for you, then

The concept of moving was so foreign to me

I had lived my whole life in one place

The same house, the same town

Not much changing, except a minor renovation here

A death or divorce there

And now, look at you

Living in a little box in my heart

Just another in a pile, like jenga blocks

Marked "do not open"

Taped shut, carboard covered in dust

Lessons

You told me that most crows mate for life

That nineteen is too young to fall in love

Cigarettes made you focus

Moving on is harder when you have no choice

in letting go

You showed me how to build friendship on books

How easily it could fall apart – a house of cards

Keeping secrets and hiding the truth

Pretending that everything was a-okay

even when nothing was

And as a final gift, you’ve now taught me

How to put things away

Settling in with other items forgotten and lost

Like bottles of wine, hidden behind ceramics and glass

The corks turning to dust

Word of the day: Tyro

sandcastles

it's the indignity of hope, of expectation

that i cannot stand

i hope you will sit closer to me,

and when you don't

i wish for a shovel with which i can

bury myself in the sand

disappointment

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like

To fuck you

Although, back when we knew each other

I wouldn't have called it fucking

Even sex would have seemed too crude a word

I was so young

Too young to sleep with someone

Like you

You would have been so confident

About showing me what a man can make a woman

Feel

That I would just lay there, wondering

When it would be over

More

A man who loves me,

Hell, even a man who likes me

The world has taught me to

Lower my expectations

Keep my wishes realistic

But when you almost kiss me

When your hand rests too briefly on my back

I can't stop myself from hoping

For something more

hope

I know how things will end between us

My interest will wane, and you will continue to

Live your life

And we will laugh at the jokes

Our friends make, empty our drinks

You will leave, eventually

And I will forget about you

But there are moments,

I won't lie,

When I look at you

And imagine what it would be like

If you looked my way

Just once

stay.

"Don't leave"

You mumble in your sleep

It's more about you not wanting to

Wake up, get dressed and see me to my

Transport home

Than it is about wanting me to stay

And yet, I hold on to those words

Thank you with a quick kiss on the cheek

Which you probably don't even feel

You go back to sleep after I leave

Dream about the woman you love

The life you want with her

And I toss and turn your words in my mind

Savour them like a sweet lozenge melting in my mouth

Before they turn into nothingness

And slip away from my mind

love

why cant men limit their affections

to those hours of waking up

instead of letting them contaminate

our hours apart

why do men look for love

where there is none to give

insist that they can change

what is set in stone

lost... not found

Where is the tenderness I seek

Is it under nails, like dirt,

On turmeric-stained fingers?

Will I find it if I scream my voice hoarse

In a tranquil forest that does not talk back?

Is it, perhaps, lost beneath photo albums

Moments from long ago yellowing with age?

Was it put away by mistake with dusty Christmas

Ornaments, no longer taken out once a year?

silence

You once promised to share your poetry with me

"Let me send them to you"

You never did

That was the last time we really spoke, you know?

A few, tired words as the sun readied itself

For another day

Your world is made up of words

You pluck them like ripe fruit

Arrange them like constellations

Weave them together like yarn

And yet, when I sit next to you

Look for the tiniest morsel of

Hope? Interest? Reciprocation?

Acknowledgment of what once was

What could have been?

I don't even know

You have no words to give me

None at all

Word of the day: logophile

a lover of words

Phobia

a quick google search tells me that

the ten most common phobias include

ophidiophobia: an intense fear of snakes

aerophobia: an intense fear of flying

astraphobia: an intense fear of thunder and lightening

agoraphobia, social phobia, mysophobia

and so on

but what about the fear that keeps us up late at night?

forces us to change our ways, settle for less?

makes us choose the wrong people, live the wrong lives?

what about that intense fear of loneliness

that blooms from our skin, little forget-me-nots

deceptively delicate, and yet so eager to grow?

Water

I'm water

Taking shape

In whatever mould

Another hands me

And I feel myself

Turning into vapour

Droplets in the air

Soon to be nothing

I need to be a solid

Like wood or metal

Unchanging

Against your needs

bread, butter and other luxuries

With you, I'm willing to settle for seconds

A quick touching of hands, a smile between words

A hand on my lower back, a kiss on the cheek

Nothing that lasts beyond a moment

I think about seconds as I reach for another slice of bread

Slather butter on it, as if soon, cows will go extinct

You make a face from across the table, and I laugh

These small luxuries are all I have

A cup of coffee to my right

An offer you have never made

"Oh you are leaving" you once said

But never "stay for a while longer"

the end

the days turn into weeks

the weeks turn into months

and before you know it

we'll be counting years since we last spoke

purloin

When you hurt me with your words

So sharp, they reminded me of glass

Pieces of a mirror that would cut the hands

That tried to pick them up, capture the reflection

Of a face that winces at the pain, the blood

I tucked away the hurt, smiled through it

Instead turned to little thefts, malicious takings

Of what was yours first

And you would put on a brave face, say you didn't

Care, everything was mine to take

We played this game for so long

There was nothing left to call yours

Except for all the hurt that settled in

Among the stolen things

tone

The breeze brings with it the slightest chill

But the heat remains an undertone

Like that hint of meanness in your voice

When you say the sweetest things to me

things could have been different

i wish the first time i was naked with a man

had been a moment filled with so much more tenderness

and patience

i wish undressing had taken longer, like a game of strip poker

for everything i learnt about you, a piece of clothing would come off

i wish you had taken time to explore my body

and let me take my time with yours

instead it was all so quick,

the closing of a door, the taking off of clothes

your tongue pushing past my lips, hands between my legs

consent asked for, consent given

sighs and moans

like two actors playing a scene in front of a camera