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 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.