I’m a few years older than you
I was at my lowest
Acting funny
No colours anymore
And my head keeps spinning
Running back to you
Running up that road
Running up that hill
Through the darkness
You didn't stand by me
Can't believe you played me out
Whatever happened to you?
Whatever I've done
I'm a few years older than you
Even children get older
I'm not the guy I used to be
I'm gonna make a change
An Orange Love
Orange hair
The segments fell apart, one by one
The unpeeling
Touching skin to skin
Mouth to mouth
Resuscitated
My life opening up like one of those
Blooms
You see in the pictures
The pictures
We took them
Where did that smile go?
Singing together on the phone
Kissing until our lips were sore
Snuggling close below the setting sun
Oh,
Orange hair
I remember when you were there
Asymmetry
It had a strange shape to it, really.
The square I put us in, that night under the stars. I thought we'd never leave, the lines drawn so carefully, one side for me, one side for you, two shapes of different dimensions pushed together into a whole. Surely a bond like that could never be broken?
The circle of your hands, the warmth of your skin under mine, the circles of your eyes when you laughed and peeked at me from your chair. The circles that overlapped like venn diagrams, each of us allowing the other to enter, at least for a moment. I thought it would last longer. That's all. We didn't have to agree completely, for the two circles to hold together. But I guess there wasn't enough in that little oval section, not enough to bind us, not enough to keep us together.
The triangle broke us apart. Not a triangle of love, not like in the stories. In fact it was quite mundane. A three point punch.
"I'm sorry but-"
"I don't want to -"
"Be together anymore."
A triangular dagger, wedged into me, so easily, so casually, on that same bench we had first put our shapes into one square. The place our circles had nearly fully overlapped.
A triangle painted onto the floor. A lopsided shape, one where one side is always slightly smaller. "Can we be friends?" Because of course, of course we can, of course we will.
Even when a shape changes shape, even when it shakes and breaks and fractures into little pieces, even then. Two who were once square will stay forever connected, a shapeless cord linking our souls together.
I begin again
You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar
And so it begins.
One more time,
The song's rumbling base needles through the karaoke room
I turn to my friend
My new friend
And in that motion, I turn my back on the past, the taps on my shoulder,
The whispers about that last time I heard this song
Running through the night,
A scared teenager,
Demons and dreams and deities all twisted up inside my mind in a tangled mess of fear and thoughts and doom
The black headphones wrapped round my head like a vice, pumping out the battle rhythm that drives me towards the cliff, towards the water, an irreversible course of destruction
But right now, I am not there
I am here
I am now
I am now in a new world
With new friends (what about the old ones who abandoned you?)
With new purpose (what about that year you wasted?)
With new happiness in my chest, swelling as the chorus approaches, my friend's voice joining with my own, just like all those years ago when I was part of the choir.
Our voices overlap and I put it to rest. One demon at a time.
Don't you want me?
Not anymore. No thank you.
That past can be left behind me now.