Twenty Dollar Love I expected more— your stature reduced to a mere infatuation; your love, a twenty-dollar painting: cheap, detestable at second glance. You look better in monochrome, wearing nothing but

I’m in no position to— but I will— tell you you are the woman of my dreams. I’m in no position to— but I might just try— tell you that I need you. You make me feel alive. I’m sick and tired of lying to

I’m on a Billie Holiday, wishing you were here— we’d sail for Miles Davis, till we reach the New World. He and she were made for each other— ask Wynton if you doubt me. There’s strange fruit over Europe.

Are you but a burst of inspiration in a world gone stale, or are you the one I’ve waited for? My heart is stained, but no amount of persuasion can isolate my mind from you— it would be paradoxical; like

You allowed me in— yet somehow, the moment I entered, you disappeared. Why surrender so much power to an unworthy creature like me? I will crack the code that is you. Are you playing me— an out-of-tune

True love is a white flag raised on the battlefield of your heart— a warzone once desolate, now ours to dwell within. In a world of uncertainty, I will never settle for a throwaway love— a sandcastle built

When the world sleeps, and it’s just you in your bedroom, dimly lit by scented candles— do you miss him? I hope that, in time, I will learn how he hurt you, and all the ins and outs of your pain— but for

The scars we carry need not define us; a single stroke of honesty can make—or break— a masterpiece like you. Tell me, how deep did they cut? I’m not like the others— I won’t let your heart bleed out.

If all of this is but a fantasy on a page, and fate damns me to eternal loneliness, I will gladly retreat into these walls and forever abide in the world I have crafted— my will, where you exist, my constant,

Be my canvas— my typewriter, my vinyl. Art is modern-day alchemy— you turning me into someone unrecognisable, someone loveable.

Endless fantasies of the family you yearn for— as do I— haunt me, like our quiet small talk, like the calm that settles whenever you’re near. Your sobriety renders me unworthy. Perhaps your love can satiate

I ash my blues onto these pages— among coffee stains, tear-blurred ink, and the ghost of Chopin’s Nocturnes. Modernity drives the pure to madness— a splinter lodged too deep, a truth you taste long before

Even the Mariana Trench is but a puddle beside the depth of your brown eyes. So I keep my thoughts at bay— quiet, for now.

As the last grain of sand falls through the fractured hourglass, and the world burns in its final, beautiful collapse, reside with me in the ruins of time— where fire and ash cannot touch us, and nothing

I gamble my life away, betting everything on love. There's just enough space between my life and oblivion for you. As overcast days try to dim your light, that space widens— daily. Our oasis. Fate shuffled

freedom

home

put down the phone

He said she said... They don't know each other. Who to trust - brother from another mother or a lover? And if she said he said... would I have to listen? It's a hard road to heaven when your peace of mind

it takes just the one to forget all loss.