Epilogue.

Once so desperate for your attention

that I did handstands and magic tricks,

just for a bit of your affection,

I swallowed fire and chewed on bricks. 

I wanted you to notice me,

and like all that you would see,

yearned for your love so deeply,

like it could make me happy. 

Now in the aftermath of us,

I see that I couldn’t have been more wrong,

you made me believe in fairy tales

before you robbed me of my song. 

Stripped me of my confidence,

every time you berated me for your own indiscretions,

your insecurities ate you alive,

they were the reason why you viewed me as your possession. 

Convinced me that you cared,

claimed that you had never been in love like this;

until you left and abandoned me,

alone to fend for myself on a sinking ship. 

Your kiss, sweeter than Belgian chocolate,

and smoother than ice wine,

quickly became toxic,

like poisoned turpentine. 

Naiveté, the reason why I fell for all your games,

foolishly believed our love was hotter than fire,

despite not seeing any flames. 

Now that I have been transformed

by the absence of you,

I have changed and grown so much

that I am now brand new. 

My heart is no longer wounded,

my skin is thick once again,

no amount of love’s carnage

will ever cause me pain. 

I am a warrior now,

a fighter with an army of one,

I would rather be alone, in love with myself,

than share my bed with anyone. 

Infinity.

You were Aurora-Borealis right,

and brighter than the northern lights;

nothing else in this world, 

came close to the beauty you possessed. 

Whether you were fully dressed, or naked as they come,

every single bead of sweat that found itself upon your neck,

was more beautiful than the rest; 

nothing else was similar. 

Even your breath was musical, 

you wrote hit songs when you exhaled;

I could watch you all day long, 

studying your every move. 

The way your chest rose and fell was reminiscent of the ocean’s tide,

it ebbed and flowed pulling me deeper inside our love. 

Hands softer than the whitest sands, 

no feet have ever known such magnificence.  

Those eyes that evoke such desperation within me,

mahogany brown and more profound than philosophy;

with each blink, I am transfixed, 

left guessing which emotion they will express next. 

Despite all this, these weathered hands will not stop wringing, 

from the grief, so heavy that it collapses my lungs.

From my head down to my toes, I am numb, 

arsenic is all I can taste on my tongue.

My throat is caked with regret, 

so sore but I cannot find the strength to hydrate it and get it wet.
The ringing in my ears won’t cease, as shrill as the eerie silence of an abandoned underground garage,

it pierces my ears with such violence I wish I was deaf. 

The tension between us is thicker than the fog in China, 

and it is just as polluted by our unvoiced suspicions. 

You entered my life with as much as intensity as a fighter jet 

that has just broken the sound barrier.

Yet my failure to eject you leaves me feeling inept.

Swept under the rug, like fur or dust, or ashes from your cigarettes.
Winded as though I’ve run a decathlon yet determined to take my next steps,
this haggard heart of mine goes round in circles, unsure of whether to turn right or left.

Clapback.

Faces may pass, you still pay them little mind when you’re on easy street,

walking down the avenues of a life that came so cheap,
no one contests your success, or questions it since you’re the one to beat,
just know that some roads lead to success while others to boulevards of broken dreams.

You treated me as unkindly as the homeless that you passed daily to your chagrin,
it was not just ignorance, but heartlessness inspired by their suffering,
your own stresses were the only ones that were worth your engagement,
no one else could reserve any spaces in your mind.

Every morning, you wake up and everything is perfect,
no debt, no worries, you are so much more than the layperson,
convinced you are untouchable and that you have the Midas touch,
living life like you are the centre of the universe is more than enough.

Unprepared for the rude awakening that waits for you in the shadows,
growing stronger every time it sees your ego in action,
the more you mistreat your fellow man, the more it wants to catch you off guard,
but it patiently waits for the best moment to tear you apart.

With little heart, but a home the size of Saturn,
you have no time for sob stories as you plan for your own future,
not easy to love but somehow your life is filled with suitors,
until they realize, like all the rest, that they were just in a stupor.

Clap your hands, applaud for the man that you’ve become,
twenty-six going on sixty, how’d you get so numb?
Your grave will be the only one that no one visits,
for you wasted your life treating everyone that loved you like shit.

Death of a Salesman.

Archaic scriptures like manuscript pages from ancient history,
claim my sanity possessing me in my entirety.
Have I blind faith that I follow without any question,
leaping before I looked into the madness that is like a loaded weapon? 

 
Concealed behind your web of lies I find only consternation,
cajoled as though a prize meant to console pageant queens that failed their nations. 
Prehistoric means conceived by patriarchal men,
capture me then set me free and entrap me once again.  

 
Go ahead, that is all that you're good at,
reap what you sow then sow what you get. 
Entranced, whirling like the dervishes seduced by Sufism, you are my religion,
perhaps I needed more time to prepare for the icy cold, your only provision.  

 
Like knives, the sharpness of your tongue gored me like a butcher with a vendetta,
each utterance like gunpowder as though your words were fired at me from a Beretta. 
Raise the roof, turn the house down like jezebel,
double double toil trouble me with your wicked spells.  

Even from beyond the grave, you still wreak havoc in my soul,
I lost my head when I found your guillotine romance that made me grow old.
You poisoned me with poetry as I read between the lines.
intoxicated me with your insolence that you turned into wine.

Close it off, you were close enough but it all falls apart, shut it down,
complacency became your own enemy and now you're six feet underground.
Let it fall apart, silence in our final moments, do not make a sound.
Emancipated, wiser now that I understand what it means to be lost and found.