As I cleaned my room, I gathered up your forgotten trinkets and runaway accessories, and set them down atop the ledger, open at the page – a conscious choice – that notes the 10yr plan you suggested I explore; each artifact displayed beside the dreams I’ll build with you.

It’s Sunday, and it’s morning. You’re sat up at the breakfast bar, elbows propped, coffee in hand, legs crossed and bare, pearly in the breaking light, a pale, blue button-down does little to cover, and I too feel exposed with this obvious grin, not so much ‘staring’ at you as ‘bathing’, dabbing at the pinks in your palette, every bristle coated in your color, your magic, and I ready myself to paint a masterpiece, but stop short. Head tilted, stepping back.

I lay my wetted brush, and soak in primal views. I could never paint a picture quite as beautiful as you.

If I could scream for twenty minutes straight, I’d still have so much left inside. I long for love to tear me open, rip and split the shell that hides and strangles me till I can’t see. It burns to even fucking breathe, cos every word has brakes applied and sings like stings in both my eyes, and punches me from inside out, a hammerfist fights through my chest; it thumps and roars against the cage, throws itself against the bars, and whimpers through its rage. Witness here the ugly side to passionate enaction; the equal, opposing forcefulness of raw and fierce reaction.

You are poetry. And to think I nearly mistook you for a muse when all along you were already written. All I can do is paraphrase your rhythm and your rhyme.

Easy tiger let it breathe, like wine; the nose, I’m told, is key, before your lips and teeth and claws, before your heart and mind implore that you embed and bury deep and sink in deeply fruited sleep – far down, far down, drink up or drown or swim the viscous, ruby death, and with your final, burning breath, remember this: demise is sweet, but death by love is still defeat. Resist the urge, and take your time to drink your love like fine red wine.