✩   sudden realization, rush, almost like a pit-fall, stomach-sinking, I’ve been blind all this time, something has taken its fingers off your eyes, out of the cave now, Plato (!), ex nihilo, shaking laughter, intoxication, leave me alone with my clarity, slow, slower, falling in love, cellular, you see now - the brightness, the darkness, everything, featherlight butterflies, the sunset’s deeper, sleepless, fluttering, wind through fleshy green leaves, buzzing blood, arriving on soft obsession, words, words, words, can I, really?

✩   it wasn’t happiness in the first place but now you’re not even sure what to call it, you can’t be without it, though it’s transparent and weightless, a day under the sun, quiet, lethargy, the eye of the storm, butterflies feel like a premonition now, dark circles, the same dream over and over, whatever, gnawing worm, chills, loss of appetite, guardians of sorrow, anhedonia, fast shadows, incense, too many bubbling drinks in tall glasses, am I, really?

✩   remember how it caught you, but you can’t - was it an out-of-the-blue ghostly fragrance, a nostalgic taste, was it a few lines of music you can’t quite place, a glimpse of something formless in the corner of your eye, driving by a childhood memory you don’t think about anymore, a sentence on the crowded subway, maybe a book after all, maybe poetry, no, a shattering of sorts, the kind of beauty you feel, aching, but is unspoken, coming back from a party around dawn, a colour - what was it, really?

✩   but it’s caught you and you’re just not right, maybe under the weather, my thoughts sound like someone else’s, fear, what will it be with you, your heart might be willing to say, unless it’s paranoid or too fond of secrets, you’ll melt when desire fades and leaves, sicker than being lovesick, hunger, boiling blood but it won’t be fever, it’ll be on the tip of your tongue like prophecy, oh, but it feels like betrayal, although it didn’t promise you anything, led you on, and on, and on, bittersweet, you won’t remember - what is the end, really?, but the thing inside your chest, the thing inside your chest, the thing —