the overexposed

parts

of your body

glow like

lens flares in the dark.

the lengths you go to

to steal a conversation.

it fills

clouds as full as sails

this is the first moment of our victory

heat rises during the night
and unsettles our most profound solitude

we make placards to remind us
of a dream that will only come late in life

a warm piece of the earth
that i remember occasionally

is breaking now into
itself.

a turning
was taking place in the familiar.

places
that were usually silent

now spoke.

in your most lucid moment

you could not have
known such repose.

we dealt our drugs
back and forth

a mother and a baby bird

your limbs splayed out
like piano keys

gentle gestures back & forwards.

you asked me to make a flip book
about our lives
but i drowned
in the animation.

sharp strands of charcoal
began to engulf me

all i could see were

flickers & glimmers of 2D characters,
mechanical dances devoid of colour.

i found it difficult to differentiate
between the physical &
the existential

i would hallucinate
nausea
until i actually vomited,
hot seething piles all around the bed.

some mornings,
you would go down to the street,
just to place your palm
on the pedestrian crossing button

and feel the slight pulse
of its steady beep
echo through your body
like the heartbeat
of a small animal.

A row of leopard print gowns
swing
like pendulums
in the back of your ute.

A gross mutation
has occurred here
& nobody suspects
a thing

Five empty houses
filled
with bank clerks.

History is not repeating,
it is disintegrating

one day at a time.