Bubblegum Verses

"Vanilla Lace"
The first few cords of Placebo’s ‘Follow the Cops Back Home’ pulls me back to Heidelberg. It’s 2013 and I’m racing through the darkness on a train. Her hand just only slipped away from mine the oils in her skin burning holes through mine. I look back onto the platform and through the cold I see her standing there, longing etched into her fading features. I pressed my face against the glass and mouthed her name as we pulled away. 

I find she’s on my mind more and more these days. 

I can’t watch the first season of Breaking Bad without thinking of her. How we’d lay on her living room/bedroom floor, curled up together watching Walt & Jesse fuck things up, laughing and having little snacks. We’d watched the first few episodes switching through English and German. Those nights in Leimen that I lived for have now become bittersweet memories; small times of love and understanding that I hopelessly cling to. 

And then it makes me think to the nights I spent in Albuquerque. Watching the stars stretch above me. It felt like I was in the novel Holes when I looked up at the night sky. I'd think of her then too. I'd wonder if she found that peace she was looking for. I'd wonder if she was finally happy. I'd remember how our breath would mingle as we exhaled into the frigid nights we spent together. Our arms entwined, our bodies pressed against one another we felt content as the darkness swelled around us.

Looking back, I wonder how many of her promises were hollow. How many words she spoke to me were things never to become true?
I remember how the smell of the dye she used to colour over her pale strawberry-auburn hair would linger in the bathroom and had stained a few of the tiles. And now all I have are remembrances of her. 

"Clarice" 

Lost in the swirls of memory, I remember my name on her lips.

I remember the soft red colour that adorned her lips,

the slight yellowing of her teeth a perfect balance of life.

A visual melody of the organic and the prosthetic. 

The little scars that framed the corners of her mouth and were the 

twins of the markings that decorated her right index finger. 

I remember the way regret settled into the creases of her skin and 

feeling the slightest bit of relief that I didn't have to live in that way.

Mirganes and fascination leave me grasping at straws.

I wall myself away from the world because I fear not only eyes of isolation but for the masses to only further indulge my self-loathing. I worsen the anxiety that slowly crawls through my veins, leaving holes throughout me because I'm consumed with the belief that there is nothing within me worth saving. My secrets have completely ravaged me.

"Sugar & Ice" 

And here, once again, I find myself in an almost impossible situation. 
And when I think of him, I'm taken by how beautiful he looks

even when he's bathed in sorrow.
Being in love with you is like playing Russian Roulette, holding 

a loaded gun.

I feel myself blooming with anticipation and the unease of the unknown.
I'm aroused by the rhythm of his breathing

and I know this is more than just going through the motions.

I fear you will chew me up and spit me out just like bubble gum.

I want to watch you sleep, but I'm afraid to because I know that when you dream,

you'll be dreaming of someone else.

  For almost the entirety of my youth, I've craved the beauty of release.

"Letcher"
His voice like sweet summer mists;
when the words of everyone around me feel like nothing short of excuses,
I'm crying out for you to touch me. 
In you, I search for all that is lacking within me.
In the folds of the night's fabric, I sit waiting for any inkle of you.
I held onto the way the light would caress and decorate me in the childish hope
 that it would make me beautiful, intoxicating madness would consume you &
you'd be afraid to leave me. 
I daydream in rain in inhaling your turbulent passions. 
As you run your hands over my trembling frame a sense of wonder & security 
washes over me.
You leave no inch of me unexplored by your hands or lips;
I've never known someone so subtle and attentive to detail.


"Struggle"
I love the way she struggles beneath me.
She breathlessly claws at me, desperate for any means of escape. 
I want to dominate you in the same respect that you dominate my thoughts. 
I yearn to crawl through you as you crawl through me,
both corrupting and cleansing me. 

"Origami"
 I am nothing more than origami to the boy with the curls and the sadistic dimple.
Each rendevouz will him leaves me more blundering and breathless than before.
And all he could do is laugh as he watches my smile fade away. 
He leaves me filled with bitterness & contempt
and yet I can't fight the fluttering of my heart when I think of him. 
The back garden is bathed in bright white moonlight.
It’s haunting. There’s something waiting in the shadows.
The outlines of trees and shrubs appear evil in the sterile light.
 I’ve filled the syringe one again, beginning my ritual of intoxication. 
It knows of the wordless love I hold in my heart for it’s warm & loving arms.
 It knows I’ve romanced it to the point of being a complete work of fiction, but will never let me live it down.
And I want to forget him.
The sound of my name on his lips.
The warmth of his skin against mine.
The soft shimmer of his curls.
I want to forget his sin and for once embrace reality,
rather than plots of Victorian-era romance novels.
Baby, we’re done. 


"Shadows" 
Maybe if I get him out of my head, I’d feel better. I’m the ultimate consumer in the things that I can’t have; not that he’s a thing…though often in my mind he is seen as nothing more than that, despite the feelings I feel blooming deep in my ribs.
 I hide my longing and loathing beneath an aloof gaze and childish giggling. I know that these actions really don’t help matters, but what’s a man to do when he’s never been infected like this before?