Communal.

This canvas here, I'm going to smear it with his words, his hands and the smell of his skin.


Hang it up, slit it through and drench that strip of memory in the morning sunlight.


He stands across the room right now. Squinting, he wants me to escape outside with him, make him forget the curls on her head and the poetry hanging on her neck.


At least, for a while. She's in the smoke from our cigarettes, curling upward after he frees her from his mouth and traps her in mine, the air in my atmosphere thick with her. " I'm a visitor here, I'm not permanent." She's mine too, I'm sharing her with him and she's mine. All mine? His and mine. We're just a couple of kids fooling around. She's his rock, and my standard. You know, that bar I want to reach.




The stars in her eye can sparkle my fibre and corrode his existence.


He's never going to find out what saving him means.


I don't need his conversation, his touch or his breath on my throat. All I need is knowing that she once was. And that she remains. And that she's his bloodstream, his personal detox. His blanket and favourite book.




..and that I walked upon the same ground as her.


He's the only thing I'll lose after the barman throws us out.


There's some comfort in treating the symptoms and denying him the cure. I'm just medicine to him, bitter, distasteful and unavoidable. He leaves me on the shelf when he gets better.


And keeps coming back. Keeps bringing her back to me. We're just starry-eyed poets, him and I. Writing the same poem, sniffing the same ink.