For S
The city lights always invade the night:
I just want to fuck you in pure moonlight
or beneath a furious storm,
but the city forever prevents me.
I dream of our escape, but first
we must learn how to be caged
together.
Only those who know how to truly love
know how to hate:
we wait for them to despise us,
a prophecy possibly more fulfilling
than anything they’ve offered us before…
Life has become an idea; vapour
rising from the surface of a shrinking
lake, never to return again.
Our first fuck was a clumsy mess,
but am I wrong to see the dignity
we’ve since spent building beginning to crumble?
Who’s the most humble, the pessimist
or the optimist, & is it naive
to believe that the only worthwhile thing
is to keep giving a shit
despite the odds?
‘cos I’m all in now; no backing out:
you’ve got everything I can give.
So it’s time to ride or die, to fight or hide;
to fucking decide & then fall,
if we have to,
on the hill where
we’ve chosen to demand the impossible
& laugh at the improbable.
The city lights conspiring to hide
the cold shimmer of starlight from our eyes;
walks together: a flower & it’s thorns,
sharing our thoughts,
secrets, fears & feelings,
each the other’s mirror
using silk to remove any marks that
prevented us from seeing clearly &
the resulting electrostatic charge
binding us together.
All of this
& more
is a gift,
& every poem I give you
is an attempt to make amends
for being no more than
an unremarkable,
undeserving
mammal.
For S
I can still taste the memory of those cold
December mornings,
when all I ever wanted
was to stay with the warmth of your body.
Or the Summer evenings when
you would rise, like a feline, from the bed
to describe the most perfect lines,
just by stretching your limbs,
& how the sunlight would slip
from a halo to fingertips
brushing against your skin.
"All lovers become liars in the end."
I said,
as we lay there, naked in the bed.
They refused to believe me,
& in that sweet moment of post-fuck repose,
I looked into their eyes
& realised they were right:
only some lovers become liars.
I just can't decide
if the lie will be theirs or mine.
Words for Ghosts 