but it was home. and d’you remember the first time we made out on the sofa in the living room downstairs? the day after i turned single and we couldn’t wait much longer? the irony of that day was not lost on me. how could it be? the impact on the window smashing is not forgotten by the frame: the memory is always there – gentle pulpitations in the soft grooves of the wood.

you see, beginnings shape the world.
quietly, carefully, they smooth the edges, polish outer surfaces, let us glean a little of the inside. they are a little mirror straight into the lover’s heart, a sphere held between the middle finger and the thumb, a kite. 
it’s the beginning that lets me know where home is: with my hands on your neck; with your head on my lap.

at times i think about that, charting my life as if i painted for a living, as if i put my life on canvas in short brittle lines. at others, i get this image, clear as day, of apples bobbing on the surface of the water, rippling out. and then i think of god. 

where is he now; and does he really listen? presumptious questions often come in pairs, i find.
sometimes i lay and listen to the silence and i can almost feel it, feel him, her, them: this overpowering presence of beauty, knowledge, loss, virility and life.
but almost. only almost.
and then it’s gone, as if it were never there.

i try to live by the rules. the fornication one, that one, it almost gets me. and there it is again: almost.
isn’t the world full of them, like butterflies, circling in pallid curves across the faltering sky? think long and hard and you start to hear them: a sweet low buzzing hum. and if i were an artist, i’d paint it as a sun. 

how many calls have you missed
¿y cuandos calles anduve contigo
como si estuve solo?

your touch would have been enough
if it weren’t for the look in your eyes.
and i guess that’s just it.
that’s just fine.
one day i will cry the mud out of mine.

[breathe for relief]

a pause.
caesura.

shutting eyes,
tomorrow nears
to the tip of the tongue:
silk sashaying,
spices pungent with plans,
sweetpea undertones
simmering with the pink
of young girls’ dreams.

but

i dreamt
i dream in yellow.

hands refuse to let go off your waist.
tighter. tighter. i can almost breathe you in.
and then release.

we fall asleep like that.

every morning, neurons collide and i surface with a new approach to life. that’s how i am. and non, mon amour, i don’t wanna help it, ’cos sometimes i’ll wake up forgetting and sometimes i’ll wake up regretting, imploding with memories in black and white. i like the uncertainty of it all. how little of the world really matters and how much a little thing can mean.

sometimes i can’t find the words to fill my mouth. that’s where you come in. 
met Y today. what had we left to say to each other? so much it seems. and i remember nothing. well, almost. we spoke for hours, walking. and he hasn’t really changed much. i’m still that girl inside a split cell in my brain. every hug with him is like the last hug and i think that’s what made me sad. but why? nothing matters when i’m in your arms, i know that much.
hold me tight and let me kiss you.
you are life.

for how many lives i’ve pushed myself into to leave a mark somewhere, to scrape a line in the sand? and it’ll be gone tomorrow, but all that matters is today. so all i say is, let the wind blow: tomorrow never comes, it’s but a distant friend.

you burn without giving out heat
or smouldering at fingertips the way i do –>

there is no flicker in your eyes
or telltale signs;
there is no heavy breathing,
no tremors running down the spine
and when one touches you, they need no grounding.
you are not live.

that’s why you know just how to feel
the scattered mounds of sand under my skin,
smoothing out each grain

i’m not the same.

i learnt to sleep without turning, only to stay in your arms. 
i learnt to entwine my legs around you, to hold you in my eyes; to speak english the way nobody else can, taking you on a magic roundabout with my mouth. 
but my breath is free. it swirls like water in a glass; shakes with the weight of the world; breaks in spasms. it parts my lips warm and freezes. it cannot find nourishment in the cold, it loses its essence. like i.

and i cannot give you what i could have given you. or maybe i’m not enough. maybe i never was. only gods know what it is.

tragedy always happens around this time of year. maybe our stars are falling tonight.  listen to them thump as they break the surface tension of the ocean. then wait until they surface.
if they ever do.

levels of oestrogen are surging in this house. my periods refuse to come and their hostility refuses to die down. stress happens naturally here. 
put six queen bees in a hive and try it for yourself. but then, you know.

there is no honeycomb, no honey; only a derivative of power and no matter what the variable is, the result is always positive and large.
i learn as i type.
i silence my buzzing.

and since
there was everything and nothing
before you:
a spiral spinning phosphorescent blue,  ̶

i see that world in you.

it’s all about times like this in life: when air grows warm and shallow and eyelids flutter, cascading downwards to close in a sort of tired midnight bliss.
it’s times like this. times where you sit by the radiator, mid-october, and listen to life happen outside your window, noise by noise, laugh by laugh, the voices merging with the wind and night.

and all you feel is warmth, a yearning for a hibernation.
as nights grow longer – a pressing need to forget all and sleep in; to snuggle up for that one moment more, underneath the covers vividly coloured with summer – oranges and fuscia pinks – and dream of snow.

i want the frigid maiden winter and all her hidden joys: falling flat on your face iceskating, hot chocolate held in cupped frozen hands, reading old classics under the covers, red noses, father christmas and the constant sparkle of magic in the air.
i want it all and yet estoy contento with all i have right now, right here: the oranges and reds, the windy mornings drizzling with rain of new beginnings.

i have it all, your fingers in my hair.