it was always you.

3/11/23

“It’s meeting the man of my dreams
and meeting his beautiful wife.”
-Alanis Morisette

To all the people with broken hearts
who never even knew their love.
And all the fears I’ll never face —
the imprint he left, a dark twirling trace.
A four-dimensional embrace
is but a fictional void of space.

***

There is nothing more important than a promising beginning:
He looked at me with those arctic eyes.
Said something through soft-suburban pencil tapping
and the low-frequency murmurs.

Do you remember?
You told me a joke that day
and the words, I’ve forgotten
but I’ve never stopped laughing.

Those three months I couldn’t leave my bed?
You admitted to me,
the snow made you sad too.
Your eyes were as cold as I.
Freezing my tears and now
everytime I try to cry
it evaporates into mist,
like nothing in the air.

I stand on rooftops,
observing every spark —
a flame to a fire
left alone to devour.

To awaken of yelling cars,
over the chirping birds,
I’m in the land of Oz
but you’ve always liked girls.

***

I keep telling myself people are an amalgamation
of words and actions.
I keep telling it to myself.

It is not working.

***

Did you hear?
They’ve installed new LED lights
and now I see your eyes
every time I cross the street.
I wander rooms without purpose,
hiding from something I don’t know.

I rip my muscles apart
four days a week
in your image.
Just for them to heal back
and back again.
I know
pain is pleasure and
beauty is pain
but the middle of both,
repeated twice, I’ve said “pain”
is the love I’ve learnt again
and again.

Do you know?
Know how it feels
for every crush, a curse.?
A lightened load of sorrow
nobody cares to know.

You must remember
that day I stopped laughing.
You tried to cheer me up,
but that would be impossible.
My joy is your torture,
the same in reversal.

Only when you’re drunk
do you know me
and then you wake up.

Can’t you see
what you do to me?
There is so much beauty
in pining for people, unrequited.
But you’ve made me worse,
and I wouldn’t take it back.

You must remember- hear-
the pain- the snow- the eyes-
the curse- the crush- the joke-
the laugh- the quote- the gag- the throat-
the blood- the drink- the skies-
you must know
the anecdote-

It’s
the eyes- the eyes- the eyes-
the eyes-
and everytime I close mine
it’s darkness and
it’s only
you.

Yes,
from the beginning of my life
to the day I die-
know,
it will be
and always was
you.

It was always you.