i shook and sobbed in the chilly evening air. it was cold and i’d forgotten my coat at nottingham. but there we were, a gloomy 8 o’clock in london and i was wearing a light black jacket for the sixth day in a row. i hadn’t seen you all day; i was angry at you for making my choices; i was sick with fear and hurt and trepidation.
every time is easier, that’s why it gets harder, because after a while you can imagine yourself leaving.
you misunderstood me. you reassured me that you won’t leave. that’s not what i meant. it was i that thought of leaving you. or maybe you’d understood me after all;
maybe you were shaking inside too.
tomorrow it’s our two years. on good friday.
in the evening, we’ll go to see the dutchess of malfi; in the morning, i will wake up and pray.
the irony of it all is unbeguiling. the tragedy of tragedies on our special day. i found the tickets at a dicount and i bought them. maybe i jinxed it. and maybe not.
i find that life leaves a sip for a thirsty man almost as often as it doesn’t; and so everything is left to chance. for good or bad. in sickness and in health, a dice man moment.
and i reckon we need one sometimes. tonight, tomorrow. maybe now?
a six or a one?
yes, you are right, i should like to hide my head in the sand and pretend all that darkness is nothing but light shining through a filter tinted the colour of night. i should pretend last night never happened, i should pretend i am content here by your side in the leafy undergrowth of life where all i see are roots uprooted, dying in the sun. and would you blame me?
i could not sleep last night, thinking of the shining lights enveloping you, pillow over my head to drown out hurt. i wondered if i ought to watch a film, but that would be defeat. no, i would lay here and count your wrongs, my wrongs, the cracks in the ceiling of our hearts, thoughts, lives.
soon, soon, the artery would rupture and drown out the pain.
soon, soon.
i knew i couldn’t cut myself. what with? a knife? i could almost hear you saying don’t be silly in that tone of yours. and pills, what good would it do? only that i may die without salvation, without the knowledge of how to cling to love by the skin of your fingertips. or maybe i know that already.
and i can’t live with all that poison, not even just for tonight. i would fight but my limbs have gone to sleep and i am faced with a picture of you in the club, music pounding, drinks flowing, girls dancing.
and i realise i can’t say that there is anything missing. there is not.
Posted in chapters of my life
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we change. why do we do that? tell me truthfully and without needless words.
i spoke to you in a language you did not understand, in hope that your eyes would tell me what your lips couldn’t. in the end, your hands spoke, holding my flesh as if it were a vessel brimming with the very water of life.
i wonder how and why we have come to this river where the past merges with the future and washes over the present. more importantly, how did i leave Y behind with all his unread letters; and how did you find me amongst all the other grains of sand?
i’ve listened to too many sad songs, heard too many excuses and i spoke to Y on friday.
completion.
he came out with a gem when i told him that really, i had never lied to him, never told him i’ll be yours forever. he told me that he never lied either. a lie is something that is said with the intention of deceit. clever boy. pah!
i stick to my two plus two: all my past hurt equals you. and i’m thankful.
and between the lapses in translation i’m convinced that nothing matters but me and you and your hands. they will find me all over again.
Posted in chapters of my life
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i’ll kiss it better
before you know you’re hurt
i won’t be curt
i won’t pretend
that all those dreams are any more than
liquor on my lips
flour on my fingertips
there’s nothing a pinch of salt can’t cure
please be secure:
i’m doing all i can.
————————————————
and this love is amazing. the things i say are stupid sometimes or even downright crude. those fantasies are nothing more than a fairytale innuendo.
know that.
Posted in excerpts
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certain things hit me with a strange ferocity. different velocity, acceleration, speed, but they are have one thing in common -somehow they wound me gently, taking care not to hurt too much or break more bones than will heal naturally given time and care.
it’s often words. soft, sometimes inaudible, but always taboo.
like the wednesday past, when i met your past love and she told me of the things you and her did, the way your breathing would take on an animalistic quality, as if the lion i know in you was roused, the way your face would contort at the end of it all, the way it made her laugh.
and then there was the way she asked about what we have done. and i told her. why wouldn’t i? let the vulture take its prey and feast on it. we all need nourishment of some kind and i guess my nourishment was hearing it all out in the open. everything has it’s price and well, she’s only me in retrospect.
those little things are enough to drive us insane, but i think we ought to face them head-on. that way we are the hunters and not the hunted.
and then there was this morning and a text from you telling of your time in france and how, by chance, you ended up sleeping only meters away from your parents and their squeaky bed last night and the night before.
and i don’t want to fill in the gaps.
my parents wouldn’t.
but we are all different, non? my morals are not yours. my horror is different to yours. ukrainian normality does not always collide with the french, i know that. you laid there in silence, but me, i’d get up and go to the bathroom, garden, i’d go out.
and suppose that’s us in twenty or thirty years time. does it scare you? it scares the blinking daylights out of me.
but what do i know of fear?
maybe i ought to go to war.
so here’s my rebuttal: we do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.
Posted in chapters of my life
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i shook and sobbed in the chilly evening air. it was cold and i’d forgotten my coat at nottingham. but there we were, a gloomy 8 o’clock in london and i was wearing a light black jacket for the sixth day in a row. i hadn’t seen you all day; i was angry at you for making my choices; i was sick with fear and hurt and trepidation.
glittering soot on her eyelashes 
