#t.l.s

A Love Story 

"People meet by chance, fall in love, drift apart again" - Kate Tempest, 2016

I

When I first laid eyes on you, everything in the room stood still. In a sea of hazy faces yours was the only one that demanded my attention. Sipping my vodka and cranberry as you approached, you flashed me that smile, that fucking smile. And I was in Arcadia. In this bar, with my glass, next to you.

II

You were what I thought love looked like. Love looked like the boy with black hair and dark skin and eyes that reminded me of rain. Love looked like your toothy grin, and the way you tucked your knees under your chin, and how you held your steering wheel almost as tightly as you held my hand. I was drawn to your lips like a honey bee to a flower, and never has my name sounded sweeter from anyone else's lips.

 III Grabbing me by the cuff of my shirt, you pulled me into you. My spine curved around the steering wheel as I sat, with my thighs either side of yours. Heat rose from our skin, Our love was not luke-warm.    It was a fire. We used our fire as warmth as the rain struck the wind screen outside. A hand print on a steamy window like artists, we signed our masterpiece. - Kissing in cars

IV

It wasn't your fault, and nor was it mine. Death is not kind, it's a universal truth. You didn't mean to push me away. And as much as I wish I could hold your hand, you wanted to mend your own broken heart. But, while you were mending yours, you broke mine.    Am I Selfish? - yes - I understand - fuck - it hurts - I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault.

 V

Two months have passed, two months of trying to cry you back.    You told me that you were not ready for me but you were not ready for me to be with anyone else. I allowed myself to be intoxicated by your words. You still needed me. He still needed me. You told me, that even though we were no longer together, we were still the beautiful couple with the odd names. For people who moved around so much we couldn't move on. - Move back to me.

 VI

It was summer    when you left me, and since then I haven't been able to warm up. You left, leaving the door half open. Some days, the crack allows a ray of sunshine, others, the draft leaves me frozen and raw on the floor. I desperately missed the lips of the boy who    never really meant the words he said. Do you still love me? I asked. Your lips inches from mine,    your whiskey words tickling my cheek. Not anymore. VII Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, a little bit more depression, and then acceptance. I have finally realised that what we had, however brief and however painful, was beautiful. It wasn't the bullshit definition of perfect. But we loved each other. I am stronger now, and I will not allow you to crumble the foundations of myself that I spent so long building. I know that you never really appreciated how I would sing along to anything on the radio, despite not knowing words; or how I snort when I laugh, and I laugh often; or how I would always wear the colour yellow. We would speak of travelling the world together, but I would rather travel the world by my goddamn self than loose who I am for someone who doesn't yet    understand himself. - The 5.5 stages of grief.

 VIII

Today I saw you, and I felt nothing. You no longer look like love, but a regular boy with black hair and dark skin. There is something freeing about finally realising that you weren't the best thing to have happened. - The best is yet to come.

Fin.  ~

After Spring When he held me

in his arms for

the first time,

that's when he planted the seeds. The vines, they pushed and twisted through the valves in my veins. I breathed life, as the undergrowth enveloped my lungs. Watering me, dousing me, bathing me, with his love, he allowed flowers to grow in the darkest parts of me. I had the spine of a redwood tree, and sunflowers in my eyes. Dandelion seeds flew from my hair, making a hundred wishes. My feet, they sunk into the ground, and with branches in my bones I became one with the earth. Growing taller, and stronger, I immersed in the translucent light of him. But, as the seasons began to change, and my wilting leaves changed to brown, he no longer found me as beautiful as he did in Spring. My garden withered, when his nimble fingers stopped tending me. And while I turned to compost, he was planting his seeds in someone else.