This night

I sat on the floor outside your door, awaiting your return with nothing but a four-leaf clover on one sleeve and my heart on the other. I tapped timidly at first, but as the minutes turned to hours I knocked with my fists and the growing realization that I was, really, alone.

Nothing stirred in the darkness but despair, all I could hear was my heart beating through my ribcage, erratically. As the cold seeped through my coat and chilled my bones, I knew it, the four-leaf clover had let me down, you weren't coming home.

And so with your scent lingering in the air, I pulled myself up and walked down the stairs. Hoping to see your face at every turn. It wasn't until I reached the street outside, under the gloom of this cursed night, that I gave up hope.

You just never came home.

Arrest me now

I clutch my chest with the sheer strength of a thousand men,
Afraid my heart will pump itself into cardiac arrest.

I cannot fathom and cannot bear
La idea de un mundo sin tu hermoso ser.

Your love runs deep within these bluish veins,
It gives me goosebumps, shivers and strength.

I long to hold you and make you warm
Make you the happiest man alive.

Forgive this selfish, foolish mind
Cuddle my heart and never ever
be apart. 

The Fear

I cleaned out that old closet under the stairs where we used to keep the stuff we didn't want, but couldn't bring ourselves to throw out for one reason or another. That broken lamp, a wobbly chair and the hardcore winter boots you bought me. Not once did we go where there's snow.

Of yours I found nothing but dust. I would say fading memories of us, but some are much too vivid. The apartment no longer resembles that nest we built with a student's budget and the excitement over buying a generic coffee machine. Everything is new and shiny, all your old shit has been thrown out.

Except that here I am, writing about you once again. No, I don't love you.

I don't hate you either. I just wish you never existed.

You see, I don't know how to function anymore.  I don't know what being a good guy is and I certainly don't know how to do the right thing. I don't know when to give in and when to give all, when to resign and when to push through. I don't know how to LOVE.

You didn't take my heart, you took my compass. And here I am fluttering uncontrollably between two gusts of wind and the looming storm overhead.

I am not lost without you, I am lost because of you. And finding my way back to love has proven to be the single most difficult and lonely journey I've ever embarked on.

As I float adrift in this ocean of doubt, my greatest fear lurks around me like a shadow in murky waters.

It's the dread that keeps me staring at the ceiling all night,
the horror that clutches my heart with a bony grip
and squeezes tauntingly

The fear that I've become you. 

Three

Everything comes in threes, thirds and troikas.

Three meals a day

Entrée, plat, dessert

The three-minute egg

Veni vidi vici

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

The three Furies

The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.

One might argue that seasons come in four, but truth is, we spend a third of the year wearing coats, a third of the year wearing shorts and the other third not knowing what to wear / We spend a third of the day working, a third of the day sleeping and a third of the day doing everything else / Third parties, third degree, third time’s the charm.

Does love come in threes too???

Forget love triangles, threesomes or third nipples.

I mean to love mind, body and soul.

Can love occur without admiration, lust and tenderness?

Can love flourish without respect, passion and caring?

Can love survive without reason, desire and emotion?

Everything comes in threes, except when it doesn't.

Goodbye

If I had my way I'd never say goodbye. It's such a sweet sounding word though, isn't it? It would rhyme with lullaby, but sounds like a raspy croak instead when I say it.

Goodbye is, actually, just the beginning of life without you. It's the cork that pops and then your heart pours out. No amount of glasses could ever be enough to contain this overflowing loss I feel over you.

Goodbye ain't farewell, c'est faire mal. The plight of us and the loss of mine.

How can I say bye without your face flashing in my mind, without breaking through the sutures of this convalescent heart?

Goodbye is short for "God be with ye", may He help ye forget that ye once loved me, for I certainly can't. 

Damn I miss being with ye... dimbye my love, dimbye.

I Love

I love how you laugh at awkward situations,
Michael Scott was your hero way before he was mine

I love how you squint in the sun like you're lost in thought
How you're proud of your wrinkles and your stories untold

I love how you curl up into ball at night
And smell sweet and sleepy the morning after that

I love how you put together a magnificent frozen meal
Who cares if you can't cook, you draw smiles with the food

I love how you mock us the bourgeois,
How you toast not with water, but with your heart

I love how you smile, smile big with your eyes
And I love how you cried once, when you said

I love you

Portraits de la rue

Je vois des portraits Warhol de nous

dans les vitrines des Champs

sur les affiches dans le métro

dans les colonnes Morris ils tournent

lentement

Rouge et bleu, rose et violet

Tel qu'un tirage de photomaton spontané

Ton sourire si naturel s’allume et s’éteint

Mon visage s’adapte au maquillage

Côte à côte tes bleus et mes rouges

Je vois des portraits de nous

White ceilings

Yesterday I spent  an hour lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling. It's strange how time seems to slow down when your thoughts are picking at your heart, like tiny nail clippers with their awful snapping sounds.

Yet, the whiteness of the ceiling was soothing. Those rolling waves of white nothingness numb the throbbing pain in my mind and my heart. Although watching the sky would have been much better, I was unable, incapable or unwilling to go outside. My house is my refuge. It was all I had left after losing the war three years ago. From the rubble I built this bunker, from the bunker I grew a home. My house is my refuge, I storm it alone.

At this very moment I wish I was back there, lying on the floor and thinking about nothing at all. Because all I can think of right now is you, you and the smile I robbed from your face. Nothing made me happier than making you happy, making you smile, watching that glimmer in your eyes.

A crude awakening like an icy shower in January, just as you start to pry open the right eyelid that always seems to take longer than the left. The water's got me shivering and panting but I can't help myself, I was suffocating in the warmth of your embrace.

And so tonight I know where I'll be, back on that floor, staring at the ceiling and feeling the aberrant purge of your kisses and your tenderness. No war this time, just a pinnacle of surrender where nobody wins. No prisoners of war, just two casualties. Just... defeat.

Tu ne bois pas

Tu ne bois pas
Aucun appel ne me réveillera la nuit

On trinquera plus jamais de l'eau
Tu ne bois pas

Tu n'es plus là
Le lueur de tes yeux n'allume plus le noir

Ton bordel est nulle part
Tu n'es plus là

Tu ne bois pas
Tu n’es plus là
T’es plus à moi

I miss you so bad

Lame Light

Two cups of poison the color of wine
The texture, the feel of any other night

A whisper, a confession, a bleached out lie
To save you, to save me, to wrong a right

No blanket of stars, no moon in our sky
No comfort, no warmth, just clinical light

You gave me your heart and I gave you mine
I kissed it thrice and held out my hand

Watched it fly away,
away, into the night.

Goodbye
Hold tight
Lie

The Monster

I guess it is, I guess it's me
the monster in this fading - fairy tale
My fingers curl backwards with shame

Shame for the wrongdoing though just it may be
For no good deed goes unpunished
and no love is spared from - me

Not one word or song could ever express
could ever justify, explain, make the pain go away
No lie, no poem, no magnificent spell
can cuddle you at night, say it's all gonna be
alright.

For we must both suffer this fate,
we must rip at the seams and cry out in pain
And burn, burn, burn for what's lost
Cry, fade, let our love go in vain

I am a fade, a beast, a terrifying fiend
Save yourself, don't look back
Leave this wreck, leave me behind

The Shower

It’s on

Both hands against the wall of the secluded stall

In slow motion the drops merge into cords

They dive and lay on my bare skin

A sleek and living satin sheet

There is music in the water

A rhythm of furtive stares

The soap smells of freedom

Lather's a scent of lust

Wash away sweat and fatigue

Rinse out these silly tears

Remember the taste of them lips

A tiny, wondrous, powerful kiss

Night and Day

The warmth of the sun lingers on my face,

Though the sunset’s reds have turned lilac and grey

Our wind wanes to breeze and a whisper

The damp cloak of night around my shoulders

I dig my feet in the Hellenic sand,

Stripped down to my beating heart

Lips parched I face west and wait

In the deepening silence I wait

For the sun to rise in the east

For the light to touch my calves

For its rays to run the length of my back

For your shadow to appear next to mine