There’s not much flowing through these veins tonight. There’s an absence of colour in my cheeks that reflect the missing pieces of a puzzle. The need for magic is strong, yet it hides away in the shadows. Away from my grasp, it leaves me feeling cold like the streets that worm their way around this dumb old town of mine. Insects and first love, taunting me for trying to keep my integrity. When the end of the world keeps breathing down my neck, I picture you asleep with your hands beneath a pillow and toes curled tight. Chinese Lanterns and stars we will never glimpse. Flashes of passion that tremble as depression sullies the night air. So much affection, and yet not enough love. Appearances bore, and although it shouldn’t mean a thing, it feels so overwhelming. Nothing is too much. The words are there, yet they mean so little. Keep your desires to yourself, and just lay with me a while. Turn off the lights, and keep everything unsaid as somewhere in the darkness a helicopter chews through molten clouds of lead. Pour me a glass of something nice then chuck it out the window. Sleep for days and never wake up. Suspend belief in the living and let go of all that you hold dear. Tucked up in lethargy, and hidden behind the sun. Flowers and gardens full of weeds that beg for forgiveness as we live inside our dreams, there’s no need to say sorry, just keep those words safe until I return. Not afraid of what we left behind, only remorseful of all that we gave to the future. Animals over art. Silence over hymns. Be still, be quiet. Bathe in pools of neon oil as we catch ourselves wishing for the end. Eating toast and drinking tea, dust covered books call me back home. Fantasy in their pages, and fantasy in the way you retreat. Come into my arms once more. Come find me as the hours shrink away.