[making changes]

i never loved you but i loved

the way your hands felt,

pressed against my ribcage so i could

touch you without breathing.

i think back now

on all the things i never

asked you to do,

when we were alone and together.

you burn in my memory,

blue hair in the static city light

fading over the harbour,

where someone drowned in the dark.

sitting in an empty motel

after the summer girls have gone,

i feel like warm rain on black asphalt,

a memory in fast-forward.

it is far too hard

to turn the porch light on

without the sound of your crying

against my shoulder.

this time, i am putting

bare skin to white marble

and leaving the rose-petals here,

in the ocean, floating.