First Date
The first day, I learnt about your high standards, your vast experience
We’re on the same wavelength, but with worlds of difference
as you grill the waiter
on the Korean burger
And tell me everything wrong with…
boys / education / healthcare / tuition
wine / transportation / food / immigration
But I can’t pretend I’m not into it
And I’m happy to sit and listen and see
your mind unwrap itself before me
The joy of finding someone with thoughts like mine
Slightly different modes of operation, but still inline
with each other,
It’s rarer than I think you know
This spark between us, there’s potential to grow
The first thing I said was, wow you’re gorgeous
I can’t remember the last, but you said just: friends
I know I want more but
We’ll see how it goes, in the end
3am
I ask you a question, something deep and complex
and you say you don’t know
With a voice of soft uncertainty,
and endearing vulnerability
You’re not known for not knowing
You’d just never thought about it before
but it’s so intriguing that now, you have to know more
I give you an answer, a maybe, half guessing,
but I’m still surprised when you say:
“yeah”
So I keep sharing words from my mind,
somehow knowing what we find
at each step, as we explore your heart further
I don’t know how I know, and you don’t know what you feel
But it’s nice being able to explore things together
So I hold you and tell you
things you didn’t know about yourself
And I tease your limits
finding lines not to cross
You’ve got so much to do, there’s so much to see
I’m grateful that night that you shared you with me
Delicate
On our first night together, what I thought I saw
was questioned the next morning
as you stood in the door
to the bedroom
and told me to come to breakfast, wrapped up in something
soft
Looking cute but commanding
I couldn’t believe how close we could be
How you replaced insecurities left in me by my past
Maybe it’s true that we’re moving too fast
But I’m really hoping that this thing might last
The delicate soul I thought I’d glimpsed
Replaced with a image of strength and sass
Was it just the drink, or are you on the brink
Of showing who’s really behind the badass?
Yet one fatal flaw in this thing we’ve created
The feelings you have are so unexpected
You try to explain but can’t articulate it
All you can do is hold my hand
and tell me you need a plan
As your heart expands, at a rate unprecedented
So let’s just give it a week, and anyway,
just after that you’re on holiday, for 21 days
and we don’t want to miss each other too much,
while you’re away.
So I say: OK.
But let’s make the most of the time we have left
You come over later to sleep in my bed
We try to watch a film but do other things instead
We talk and we cuddle, we kiss and have sex
It’s crazy intense, but I get in my head
So we talk a bit more and you help me reset
Then we fall asleep naked, and I feel content
Pork £2
I feel you pouring into me like liquid gold
As we move into a parallel world
Where I get to feel, and you get to be held
A possible instance in a timeline we choose
Where shields are dropped, and fears are cut loose
And all that’s important is just me and you
We know we’re not here, we’ve drifted away
Beyond our old lives, escaped time and day
Living in the moment for the first time, you say
Me, so care free, makes this complicated
The call back to life says that we should just end it
To return to a reality that now feels faded
But this snapshot of ours makes everything brighter
Letting it go feels like torture
Must we get up for work, can’t we stay a bit longer?
Delicate (Part 2)
We meet up in town, and we have a plan
to see a parade, I want you to be proud
of my efforts to make you as happy as I can,
as I hold your hand, and browse for gifts
You with the patience that only girls have
And me willing to follow til nothing exists
Til the stars have all collapsed, and nothing remains
Except for just us, floating in space
Each day spent with you, I’ve learnt something new
How you think, what you see, why you do what you do
Your ideas for avoiding future pains
and teaching self restraint
We still see other people, and I give notes to you
Who meant what, how to flirt, this is all still quite new
You say I’m your mentor, and you are my muse
But still you tell me it’s finite, as you need to get back
to exploring things, learning, protecting yourself
The yearning you feel for me when you’re away
Just doesn’t stack up well against your predictions
No room in your calculations
For something so intense
And you need to avoid how things went with your ex
And you say you don’t want to lose our connection
So we should keep it like this, keep things frozen
But we’ve never been anything but an explosion
And you’ve been everywhere, and it’s taken you this long to find me
In this little town, a drop in an ocean
‘Cause when we’re together we feel like a couple
of random explorers making sense of the land
Explaining the things each other can’t see
Practically you’re order, and chaos is me
But emotionally we’re the other side of the yin-yang
Our final night comes, and we have fun together
But I still can’t quite make sense of avoiding what matters
At least to me, and maybe that’s seeing
something that’s not there
But we’ve talked non stop,
and I know that I wasn’t meant to catch feelings
And I held back when I could
Like when we sat on my sofa and I felt a flood
of warmth and glowing and I shut it down
It’s not the time nor the place to let that come out
But you can see it in my eyes
and a part of you wants it
But this all happened so suddenly
And you need time to process
The night ended up messy, it’s not what we wanted
Drunk and blacked out, we were both disappointed
But later we’re talking on something important
You ask me to come over and say it in person
I want to, I have questions, and I’m feeling heartbroken
Since you called it the end
when you emerged from our drunken den
in the morning,
and you seemed to be over it with no regret
And I’m left with a you-sized hole in my heart
That won’t heal fast enough
Still uncertain on why you’d break this apart
But you say things have moved so fast in this moment
And you tell me you’ve so much on
so you feel protected from feeling broken
and you won’t have time to process until you’re gone
and that makes me feel better, and I start to recover,
Knowing I’m stuck with my feelings while yours
will come along
in the future
So I come and we talk and you pull me closer to you
You say we can cuddle, I want to too
I don’t even need to think of a future
Just explore our feelings, it’s what we were built for
You tell me you can’t, but that I’m not just someone
With me it was different, something else, all along
And finally you tell me something I can make sense of
A better idea of why the end of us has to be:
You’re not ready
This is all so much
You’re not even sure what’s so scary
Intensity is normal for me, and while it’s been such
fun for you, letting go and embracing things
You can’t stay open to this
You have to listen to your gut
So let’s just be friends
I’ll have to adjust
I’ve done this before, let go of a closeness
but this is a different space
In the past I lost trust, but I still feel safe, with you
But then you kiss me
and it feels like before
And I stay overnight, and we talk in the morning
And it’s like nothing changed
And we’re just as close as before
When you stood softly wrapped
At your bedroom door
But then I say something meant to be helpful and interesting
It turned out to be hurtful, and totally devastating
You lie down next to me, cuddle in close
“I’m more fragile than I look“
wiping tears off your nose
And I feel like I’ve smashed a glass heart
into pieces, a pain not receding
I never want to make you feel taken apart
and you say to me, half whispering:
“Ask me why I will be happy and sad.
I will be happy if you miss me
But I will be sad if you are hurting”
And I ask for a postcard every day
You say that’s expensive! You can’t pay
for that, but you can send me voice notes
and give a play-by-play of your time away
And we walk you to the bus stop
After a lengthy delay
Caused by cuddles and kisses and feeling OK
I don’t know what we are as I kiss you goodbye
I want to stay close, but I want you to feel safe
You said I broke all your models, this is entirely new
This thing, me and you, it’s too out of the blue
You need something safer to hold onto
So I accept how you feel, and accept what’s important
Demolishing us left me stranded, empty handed
But I can still love you without kisses, still hug you without lust
This thing, this spark, this warmth, this trust,
It hasn’t changed. I just got scared.
So who knows where we’ll go, maybe we’d be better friends?
As long as we’re close, I’ll be happy, in the end.