After these two years I have learnt

how to follow every step down the hall

every right angle of every wall,

to walk toward the shower/shitter

in darkness: I could make the walk

with my eyes closed.

 

Two years ago – February 

14th – such a lovely Valentine gift! –

I moved in to this house of unloved things

& became one of them.

Until gold & blue colours, like

bright sunlight meeting an ocean,

appeared at my door.

 

Soon, every week we broke the law,

as society locked-down I crossed town

so we could spend days & nights

drinking together, fucking each other

as if there would be no tomorrow

& not caring if there would be.

Then the weeks

became months; the winter

 

crawled through spring & became summer.

All the while I pined for another: my

wildflower amour, my amante, the one

who sent me into exile & into

this house with its smell of neglect,

self-pity & cigarette smoke. Until

one day they returned offering

to satiate the longing for 

sweet nostalgia.

 

So began the slow destruction

of the peace I’d found within

ocean eyes: I betrayed & followed

the path back to my life before exile

but of course, it couldn’t last:

it was doomed from the start & that

is when I met the raven with the soul

of a van Gough landscape,

but by then it was too late & escape

was all I craved…

 

Until raven hair, red rose lips,

delicate fingertips & such forgiving eyes

 

fell to find release

in a blue so ugly compared to

 

the sky in which she used to fly…

 

At 2 a.m in the morning the thoughts became starlings;

dispersing, flying & reforming again,

afraid a cage & the end of all freedom

lay hidden, patiently waiting.

 

Yet other nights they would fly above

evergreen trees, winding paths &

fresh clean streams.

 

Some nights the trees became

something they could never be, &

the water turned to perfect mirrors

flowing towards an endless sea. 

 

Now

the starlings are starved & dying,

motionless on blackened trees 

above a burnt & barren ground

 

where there is nothing so beautiful as you,

or birds flying through 

the clearest

blue sky.