i never got to tell anyone

exactly how i fell for you

recount the moments meticulously

like i would if i were writing a recipe

a doctor’s operating manual

a washing instruction

cold wash, 20 degrees

sullen, swooping mountains are all one can see

for the entire misty day you waited for me

and by sunset you caught a glimpse of me

you opened your arms in glee

when my clothes still reeked of rai...

because that’s the only way to breathe

because language puts pain at ease

at least just for a little while

our story grows stale

the texture of it disconcerting

and the fabrics of the space between us becomes gritty

when it shouldn’t be

i thought we had closure

had imagined a hundred different ways of this ending badly

all convincing enough for me to believe in

i thought i had ripped out unfinis...

If I could count the ways I love you

I still wouldn’t be able to understand

why I can’t unlove you

and disentangle my soul

from the not-world we made

why I can’t flee from the sooty ruins and the smell of coals

and watch my burn fade

I still wouldn’t be able to un-learn

the heat from your palms

the shape of the space right below your collar bones

where i’ve kept an un-shed tear

every time yo...

i often wonder how our story will be told

if we had met differently

would we grow old

together, or become the friendliest enemies

if we were the same age

or from the same town

sat next to each other in the cinema

or walked our dogs on the same lawn

we could have met at the bookstore

reaching out for the same spines

have you ever wondered how beautiful it is

to call those liminal spaces “spines...

I’ve created a monster

by laying bare my cards

and letting you go

I fed it the shards

of my rain-soaked bones

and watched it fatten

in a season where leaves have fallen

The pain has morphed into something even more difficult to describe

a lingering tremor

like Big Bang’s leftover noise

i took a shower in the dark just now

because electricity was out

i lit a candle to place in my wash basin

y...

you sent me a photo you took

of a rose burning in a bonfire

i marvelled at how poetic it looked

against my untamed heart you and this moment seem to conspire

you told me about this day at the beach

where a sunset has set everything on fire

and marshmallows had to be roasted on roses

and their shadows danced like real lovers

i think about how we shared this memory

over the wires, so to speak ...

you printed out a photo i took of you

and kept it under

the glass surface of your desk

your smile all glassy

opaque because it was taken on a misty day

i still see that photo before it became one

as i stared through the viewfinder

i remember the moment i clicked on the shutter

one flash.

our eyes crashed

in that nugget of a second

a piecemeal attempt at eternalising

something that was alread...

i laid down on wet grass today

staring at the disappearing clouds

thinking about how you and i

have done something some lovers never could

they could’ve stayed as one, unbroken and forever

but never became themselves and healed

we talk about the rain

but never enough about the wet scars on the pavement

or the grass that end up soaking my jeans

we talked, over the phone at 3 am

choking up to the ...

how does one move on from something that didn’t happen?

how would you depart from a place

that didn’t exist on the maps

exiled from definitions, a void that entraps

how do you move on when you cannot move a limb

paralysed, stupefied

fossilised in place like chalk white cliffs

mulling over an alternative landscape

where your tectonic plates will collide with mine

forging peaks and valleys

that...

a window is stuck open and i’ll have to live with it

i chew the phrase over with my molars

swirl it with my tongue chafed by its bitterness

it sounds foreign even in a tongue i’ve mothered for years

is there anything you don’t “live with”?

i’ll have to die with the dead memories of

those brooding mountains and their prehistoric sounds

that sounded like breaths punctured by

a lone rooster’s crow...