where are we, amongst the haze?

i.

this is the most intense i have felt,
looking into the realms of his eyes,
to see everything.

everything my life could be.
everything my life was.

he blinks, and i am now;
we look out the window at a dawning sky
and fall asleep together, the first of many more nights
of his touch tracing the map of my skin,
and a kiss on the curve of my back.

he is there, in that moment of golden dust,
all-encompassing, in full embrace
of all life gives to him,
because he understands that with the worst
you will find the best you can ever achieve,
like how i’d fallen through the cracks and stayed down there for a while
with splinter thoughts and memory minefields
until nature called for me to seek light,
a photosynthesis of consciousness that has long been
left in the shadows;
i passed through the cracks once more
and found him, hunched over,
scraping out his last splinter
and our eyes meet.

falling in love is entirely natural and totally uncompromising.


ii.

it is the darkest point,
he tells me. darker than the blackest night,
he tells me, strangled
in the knots of bedsheets, lost in the scent of stale
cigarette
he is trying so hard to become part of;
in the turn of nocturnal hours
he is as wide-eyed as the owls patterned across the covers.

he coils,
into the threads of his thoughts
until he becomes the bane of his own

the curtains are closed.
there is no dawn to rise with.

i look at my bare hands that have learnt
the contours of his face and the i look into my own eyes,
in search of his pain.

he is not here, in this moment,
stray and mind askew, searching for
comprehension even he cannot master.

i am here,
waiting for happiness to find me in the centre of its palm again,
and what more can bring me closer
besides patience
and compassion?


iii.

the winds have blown
and the leaves touch ground
in delicate search for gravity,
the way i search for calm
at the end of heavy rain,
where the air is static and my emotions are weary.

he wakes to a brighter day
and looks into my eyes for comfort,
and the voices under my pillow and
hanging off the doorknobs tell me
it will save him if i learn to look away,
because he must learn
that his truest comfort can only come
from himself, and love must come from within
before he can connect with it
externally.

but i cannot look away,
because i fear the worst,
and want the best,
so i look deep into his eyes
until i begin to stare and touch his all
with the purest of honesty,
until i find a nerve and prick it without notice.

the storms return,
torrential and unforgiving,
but i have faith in the sun
for i was born under its light.


iv.

i do not want to listen
to the echoes of empty walls
and empty embodiment.