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I

Ember like venus in dusk

Shoots from your lips to pavement.

I wish in silence

Unspoken words which

Hang

Heavy as the lighter in my pocket.

If I ignite this duvet warmth,

Will we rise from the ash?

II 

Ma told me not to leave my bones out for strays.

Said they’d keep coming back,

Track in their filth.

But your hearth is warm and you

Tend my wounds

So I file my claws

Like Galatea 

And cling.

III 

At once the sun, moon and all the stars.

Dazzling. Distant. Otherworldly.

I bask in your glow and blind myself

To the tick tick ticking time bomb.

IV

You are my muse,

My body is the canvas.

For your eyes, I endure

Destruction and rebirth 

At your whim

Gooseflesh and scars 

Thaw frosted viscera.

V

Darkness is the absence of light

And love is the absence of disappointment.

Never let them become the Atlas of your self-centredness.

This “suffering” is nothing against the inevitable.

Glacier melts and erodes the coast.

Either reinforce or replace.

Only a matter of time before your thoughts become their words,

Self awareness never saved anyone anyway.

VI

There’s a chill in the air,

I wrap a blanket around your shoulders.

Try not to notice you shrug it off.

I ask, not with my ears but with obligation.

Your non-answer is already branded into my memory.

VII

The softest wool hides razor sharp fangs.

Senseless, desperate worship has deified you.

Master of all rules,

You make and break as you please.

God forbid I do the same. 

My apologies are your excuses and I follow in your deafness.

We’re galaxies apart, but I chase you like Icarus.

Cigarette burns are the price for tepidity.

VIII

Bile bubbles and boils in my throat

Where love once lay, chokingly.

Shower steam scrubs you from me,

Not quite reaching my mind.

I’m no longer yours.

You were never mine.

Even now, your head is held high

In ignorance? Defiance? Cruelty?

Your gleaming crown’s glare

Shatters any hope of catharsis.

Even now, you don’t see me. 

IX

Your desire to melt has set me ablaze,

Bright enough to finally see,

Never an us, just your ego.

Frog in simmering water mistakes

Scorpion playing with its food for kindness.

Stinging venom courses through veins

But still I lay paralysed.