#prosetry

it would have partially been because i was pretentious and fifteen and obsessed with knowing the right answer, but mostly i would have recited the dictionary because words were all i knew.

i'm supposed to be working on an assignment, now, but my tea is cooling a little and i feel like i have time, in every sense of the phrase; so i sit writing. definitions i can memorise; but love isn't just a word. love's an experience.

love is always giving your brother the biggest piece, without him having to hint to you that he's hungry. love is promising your friend that you'll watch andor, after years of begging, and putting it on the top of your to-watch list even though you really, really want to rewatch marvel in chronological order. love is making your mother tea while she works and pouring the freshly boiled water into her mug first, just in case there's not enough for two and a cup is a little short, and it's wordlessly sliding a twirl bar onto her desk with the mug even though it's the last one in the box.

love is tentatively asking your father if he'd like to watch an episode of your show with you, and it's recounting the updated plot to him the next time you finish an episode alone. love is making an unexpected friend in the university bathrooms, all because you said her hair was beautiful just as you were leaving for a lecture. love is asking your tiny cousins about paw patrol and the easter bunny and listening intently even though you aren't really interested - it's pushing him along on his little bike when he gets tired and it's choosing funny, silly filters on snapchat and calling her beautiful when she sees you sending a picture to your friends and asks you to "give her the makeup one to make her pretty".

love is one of my friends making me sandwiches and cutting them into rectangles when she always slices hers diagonally. love is my partner trying to paint a portrait of me because she "loves me in pictures, not in words". love is my long-distance friend assigning one of her plushies my name so that she can hold me though i'm 11,620 miles away.

love is displaying anonymous kind notes from high school beside my mirror because i don't recognise the handwriting but someone recognised my heart. love is neatly sidestepping customers' inquiries as to why the café will shut down for a week, because it's my boss' personal business and he hates the idea of telling people. love is learning countless olivia rodrigo songs as an excuse to go to a bar with a brand new friend, and it's admitting to another recent acquaintance that my fishing skills are subpar and i need his advice.

love is strangers! love is a group of elderly people doing bible study once a week and ordering rounds of coffees like shots. love is smiling at small jacket-swallowed toddlers and it's being patient with their tired parents. love is telling a woman that her hooked nose is gorgeous and it's telling a man that you love his cool haircut.

love is fucking everywhere. it's not easy to admit it when it feels like "everywhere" is crumbling, but it's true. open your eyes. tip a cashier. buy someone flowers, or pick them on your morning walk. ride a bike and feel the wind through your sweaty hair. go to a stationery store and write your name in a thick, smooth marker. spin around in public. listen to an instrumental movie soundtrack on the bus. call your sister. watch a film over facetime. learn to knit and give up within the hour. write yourself notes and slip them between books so that you can find them later.

make the love you want to see. give it; you'll get it back.

In some next world, we will meet again as equals. I will not remember what you like to drink. Instead, I will take your face into my hands and run my thumbs over your eyebrows: I know you. I know you. I know you. Like you told me that first time. Called me by my name before I had spoken it to you.

IT’S SEPTEMBER

and I was wondering if you miss me too. Just a little? Like, when the leaves are red and falling, do you ever stop and think what you hear is the sound of my heart? She still plays for you like a swift song, babe. Waited by the door for you. Saw you everywhere— like daylight. ‘Cause it was never a clean break. ‘Cause I miss you. And I almost call you. I almost do.

It's September. Another phantom sunrise, and I can’t get out of bed. If tomorrow ever comes, maybe all this nothing will amount to something. Spiderwebs and reindeer moss. Candlewax and polaroids. Dust and butterflies. Silence. You were always too comfortable with silence.

It’s September. End of summer. Heat wave. (breathe in) Heartache. (breathe through) Heartbreak. (breathe deep) And I think, I think this pain will never fade. You’ve given me a lot (breathe out)

to cry about. But it’s September, and I’m watching the sky again. Windows open. Hair as long as sunlight. Pretty yellow dress with the flowers. It’s September, and there are peach trees to lean on and mountains of books to read. I’m still finding it hard to sleep—but when I do I don’t dream of you anymore.

September and I just wanna tell you: I miss you, but not the months of back and forth. How it wore out the footprint of us until it looked as if we’d never met.

These little hands

Are mind to hold

Minds to mold

Hearts to grow

If I could give you anything

It would be the whole world on a string

So hear me when I whisper close

I’ll be wherever you choose to go

Love,

Snapshot

* from my lofty perch on high, lowered onto the landscape - the realm of flora & fauna

precious few things rend a tear of regret

as much as watching the destruction of said 'scape one property contract at a time, brick at a time, excavation by excavation

for ostentatiously austere hovels stacked, not sprawled

with the attendant coffee & noodle - ahem, palaces of baristas, noodlistas young, hip foodies posturing…

against this backdrop walks this - i swear i'm not jealous -

grossly-nostalgic, jaded jackalope of a scrawler, scraping barren boulevards in literary lost cities of angels,

still freshly paved over what once were cobblestones carefully laid by craftsmen, brick by brick by brick.

two aching hearts, intertwined.

both of them, cards on the line.

neither of them, surrender their pride.

two futures that no longer align.

how their love, now disoriented.

separation seemingly cemented.

two aching hearts, pulled apart.

In the pale blue sky

Sun gently illuminating

The invisible electromagnetic fields of trees