Do not listen when they utter
‘when you love someone
your eyelashes chatter to the wind
and fireworks fall from your eyes
and tickle your skin’

because really love is
an old fashioned telephone,
heavy and its ring echoes and shakes
bones inside
as somebody forces a finger
in the numbers and rams each tiny
numeral-heart
to the wrong side of your chest,

then lets it flip back, unaided,
smacking  the plastic against skin.

But it never clicks
back in place --

really love is
the sounds of acrylic against keys,
tapping faster to try and keep up
with the pulse of the phone
and the clunks and clanks of the heart, muttering

a late night ‘Oh my god I can’t catch my breath’,
and it’s only eleven minutes past midnight
so I think tonight, time is going to drag its feet
through clouds with grabbing hands
that will not tick-tock forward - instead
they grow brittle claws,

not water vapour that used to clings to my windows
so I could smudge feelings into reminders
of how too many hours I have left to try and explain to myself
what love really is.