A Better Poet – A Haiku

You are a better

poet than I, and you don’t

even realise.

In a Single Evening

In a single evening,

we put your world to rights

and emptied your head of those things you never needed,

but could not shake off.

In a single evening,

we imagined what four walls would suit us best,

to keep us safe and give us strength.

In a single evening,

we held each other like it would be the only night we’d have;

like we feared being apart;

we were electric.

In a single evening,

we planned the first day of the rest of our lives,

to the letter of our names and the colour of our ties.

All that, in a single evening.

Just think of what we could do,

from now until forever.

When You Need Me

When you need me, and I am

far away, I feel sick.

Like a medicine

that needs its patient in order to survive.

You keep me alive;

how can I ever be without you,

when you need me?

A Fear of Heights

A fear of heights is irrational;

a fear of falling, not so.

But this is higher than ever,

and the fall is a beautiful throe.

Wait – A Haiku

You are the ‘One Day’;

all time between then and now.

I’ll wait forever.

Soon

Hand. Chest.

Hold.

Breath. ‘I have to go’.

Stand.

Shoes.

Breath. Me.

Door. ‘See you soon’.

Kiss.

Door. Chain.

Tears.

Breathe. Breathe.

Next time.

‘Soon’.

Face – A Haiku

Ev’ry angle of

your face is the rise and fall

of a heartbeat-beat.

Waited

I could have waited a lifetime to ask you to be mine,

but what would be the use?

Forever begins at a moment’s notice anyway.

Never Really

Every time you leave, you leave your fragrance on the pillow.

So really, you are never really gone.

Each time you say goodbye, say goodbye but just for now.

So really, you are never really gone.

You just don’t want to lose me; lose me in your eyes then.

So really, I am never really lost.

You are so happy I’m yours; I’m yours and I have found you.

So really, I am never really lost.

Tick

You are every second.

One Day

Yesterday I said

“I’m gonna marry you one day”.

I’ve put it the diary,

Just in case I do.

Beautiful Noise

You are like the speaker

that I permanently borrowed from you

about fifteen days into our life together:

a conduit, a loudhailer,

for everything I want to say,

every feeling.

For all the ways that I don’t see me,

and all the ways that you don’t see yourself,

you are sounds thrown powerfully from the pit of the stomach.

You are beautiful, beautiful noise.

I Will Paint

I will build walls around you,

or scaffold you up.

I will patch up the cracks,

I will paint.

I will clean all your windows,

even polish your floors.

You are a monument, a beauty;

a saint.

Fiction

Perfection is a fiction,

as far as you’re concerned.

But you must be mad;

there is nothing fictional in you.

Of Course Not

Of course not,

I’ll stay right here.

Clothes

You have taken off

my clothes,

without touching me.

Chest

The air pressure changed

as you said goodbye for the night

and closed the door.

Not in the room,

but in my chest.

The Threads – A Haiku

You are in the threads.

You are in the very threads

of our bed. The threads.

Tonight

I thought the house had

stopped smelling of you,

when I woke up this morning.

But you were still here,

when I got back home tonight.

Clearly

It’s just water, really,

but I can see my reflection and yours more clearly in it

than in even the places it came from.

Sounds – A Haiku

When he calls for you,

somehow it’s a feeling now;

just two sounds: ‘Baby’.

Even Without

There is a scent in the air now you’re gone,

a dip in your pillow, even without any weight there.

These signs remain.

You’re not touching my hand though,

I can’t actually taste you on my lips.

But it feels like it.

I can’t wait for you to come back.

Calm – A Haiku

Life under control

is overrated. Calm is

nothing special, see.

Juggle – A Haiku

Only someone with

seven arms, could juggle all

this with any ease.

Intruder – A Haiku

What have you done? In-

-truder, what are you doing?

How long can you stay?

Chest – A Haiku

I can feel the way

you bite your lip. Only it’s

in my chest. It beats.

In Reverse

Nothing has ever lived up to expectations

quite like you,

and then taken a step and continued yet further.

You are every disappointment, in reverse.

Eyes – A Haiku

Just look at those eyes.

I can’t help it. I’ve fallen

into them. Just look.

Rebuild

From the ground, uneven as it was, the foundations were laid.

Then brick, then brick, then brick, and mortar. Some reclaimed,

some new, uniformly brought together; a structure.

It was steadily taller, steadily wider, steadily stronger. Then steadily came more walls.

The windows were large, clean; light flooded in – at first, at least.

Still, on the top floor, where the sun is brighter and the heat is held in,

the cracks in the walls are less clear, the flaking outer skin less apparent.

No-one noticed. Not on the top floor.

The bodies underneath though, they know. They reach up, call out.

Escaping while the doors are open,

and while the change in air pressure seems to push the people out,

this is the imperative. The signs tell them to run.

When the building begins to fall, it is those outside, those who ran,

who will see the sun.

And everyone from above will be buried underneath.

And then they must rebuild.

 

 

 

Resist

Your skin is poison.

Your lips are forbidden.

Your hands are strangling vines.

Your eyes are coal.

Your voice is untuned.

I just can’t resist you. I can’t.