[say it: love]

you remind me

of water in the kettle,

fragments of voice recordings

saying things like

i loved someone who

was never mine.

you search for silence

in a crowd of strangers,

not realising the only emptiness

is inside you,

a version of paradise

you never asked for.

romance in rhythm –

gripped in paroxysms

of alternating grief and terror;

how long until the hammer falls,

and it becomes

impossible to love you.

it is only here,

where the world is sinking,

that i think of all the time, all

the years of rain –

sometimes i weep,

sometimes i drink.