Write me, 

as I drag you through my shadows

softly

shimmering 

reaching for a hand to hold.

"Hi.

 

Curious

A year ago, we were whole.

Now, I'm a piece of a story 

which will never be finished

Sweet, soft happiness

blissful little creature

so fast and so 

suddenly lost.

Last Call for the Lifeboats

I can tell by the gentle slope of the hallway

as I wade on through leftover luggage

and by the way the fluorescent lights

unignite

I'm just a little fool

I've got no head for physics or for maths

I've lived my life for pretty lights

glasses of effervescent wines

minor crimes

of the heart.

It's not my area of expertise

but this near to the closing of it all

even I can tell our ship is sinking.

Go to, unblinking. Hike up your skirts of cobwebbed silks 

and carry on. Here, the stairs.

The rushing of the ocean

cannot overtake

the memories of dancing

just a little while ago.

I know where the exits are

I can even swim. I won't. 

This is the closing of the ball.

The last call.

There's no one waiting on the shore.

The lifeboats have already left.

Yet, I've got an itch

a pinprick of a thought

that if I get to the deck up top

the stars will still be smiling high above.

she her I him them us

Fragment, 2024. 1986.

Seal

 I dipped my toe into the water, 

and it was still delicious. 

Selkie-fat and full of happiness, 

sliding,

I bit down, 

and my mouth filled with the sweetness,

of another's sweat.

Write

Don't sabotage yourself, he says. I do nothing else. Write. 

What right do I have to create? 

I want to tell stories, that's all. Beautiful painful little tales. I still ache for the plot. Throw some more at me. Let me fall, like Alice, into reveries. Let me slice myself open on heartache, hurting deliriously from the knowledge it all will end, it almost already has. 

Well, it has. 

We're in the after. There are no more kisses, no potential. She didn't become an artist, or a scholar, or any other kind of immortal. She's just slowly dying. 

A kind of luck, of course. But still. 

Write. 

Shut up, I will. 

Rest for a while. The branches are loving, the snails plentiful

 

 Do you ever think that maybe you started disliking yourself to make it ok for someone else to hurt you?