The water is murky.
Murky are the thoughts
that trail my heart.
Trailing across skin,
my fingertips reach out for yours.
You’re nowhere to be found.
Do you want to be found?
I sense I will find you behind glass.
A glass dome in an exhibition.
“Don’t touch or tap the glass,”
the sign dutifully says.
The exhibition has winding hallways
which I delicately explore.
I explore the lines of your tattoos
on a sweltering morning.
That morning the thin sheets clung to you
as you stared at the ceiling.
You silently sealed the broken
windows of your gaze, I remember.
I try not to remember that afternoon,
but I think about it a lot.
A lot has gone through my mind.
The mind is stuffed to the brim,
it’s bursting,
it’s a pufferfish.
My pufferfish mind has spikes
whose toxins will poison
those who do not handle with care.
I still care for you,
even if it was only a couple of months.
Months are long
in the grand scheme of Disney movies.
Has Disney made me naïve?
Naivety has moulded me into
a Romantic lost at sea.
It seems I don’t know what to do
with these waves that hum your name.
I’ve since stuffed them into unassuming gifts
I doubt you’ll ever accept.
Except, I selfishly wish to give you
each and every one,
subconsciously bought during my travels.
Travelling is such a lovely mourning veil.
I’m fashionably shielded from the crashing waves
that long to pull me under.
Under the veil, the soul sings with fullness,
but there are moments when the fabric shifts
and I wake, empty.
Empty days are rare.
They are often too chaotic and full.
Full of experiences
and people
and choices.
Choices are forks in the road
which make you cry out
before a shattered reflection:
“Are you a good person or bad?”
A bad person for not saying no,
for embracing Icarus,
or doing it all
and still missing you.
Am I missing something?
Something aches within me.
The doctor is telling me to point at where it hurts.
But I don’t know where to point.
The sky is a long way to fall.
The water won't soften the blow.
Do we love the person,
or just the feeling of being in love?
Falling in love is so painful and thrilling,
it’s hard not to chase the next fix.
(My name is Jubilee, and I am an addict).
