1. I have not heard from you in about five weeks,
I feel like I am missing about
half of my self.

I cannot sleep,
my head clanks against hard pillows
and I can never drink enough water
to clean all this away.


2. I called in sick at work again
and I lay on an unmade bed watching
the blinds batter the window frame
into a broken blue. It distracts me from sleeping
but not from the thought of
you.  

Outside it is cold, the sky sits sadly,
drooping clouds from its shabby fingers
like cotton candy yo-yos
and the rain does not fall -
but I think it should.


3. I cannot find you,
are you hiding, in the sleeves
of my jumper?
The cuffs look bitten and when I close my eyes
I can see you inside the cloudy green, listening
with rolling eyes,
as I mumble in poetry
that you are not meant to hear.


4. The doctor says I am okay, just a little
Infected - he sent me back to bed
and mother keeps leaving tomato soup
on a grey tray outside my door, with notes
from my  friends
but not from you.


5. I was going to call you up and softly say
I’m feeling a little ill and need somebody
to talk to. But when I tapped your number quietly
into the telephone, the words blushed and hid
under my skirt -
I felt more like a waste of your time

Hanging up was like

giving up.


6. I sat alone instead, painting your face with words
on a lined sheet of folded paper,
I carefully wrote in my diary
all the things that remind me of you
like blue eyes and sad songs and
broken hearts.


7. My legs are shaking under purple cotton bed sheets
and I have to hold my chest every time
I swallow down on the thought of
you. I want to say
‘I love you’
but my mouth is not big or strong enough  
for words like that.


8. You stuff my creased letters
under your mattress
and do not reply.