poppy-heart, petal-wings, missed beats still heard

cloudwoven moonsail moored in me

come, write us, unfinish our book

'Nameless and patient, these things had been waiting in the dark, waiting for her to come back and enjoy them. They met her eye with self-possession.' -Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes

Let go, my voice, but deeper, under your skin; unmute, speak heart.

What life do words have if I don't breathe them, but swallow them, more caged birds for my stomach? Open my mouth to you, let my words speak feathers to your skin

love, the breathing of your soul upon my lips ~e.e. cummings

...hers and mine are the same.

Dear Souls Kraków, 2016 Laura Makabresku

When I bare my soul you feel seen. Who did we leave but ourselves?

November bloom - hope despite

dream of us to meet me there

From the shadows, you are watching me dance in the light, smiling at you, beckoning. You are not coming closer; I understand, it feels safer there. I will also take shelter in the dark, existing but unseen, finding you in words unwritten.

tiny winged thing [broken or unbroken] as breath held soft within my body or released to sky [together or apart] you are still my heart

Memories of words that still live, unseen, unheard, but breathing, humming, in fingers, on lips

vines unblushed clouds falling for us

Entangled in your absence, each day is a petal we didn't slip between pages, each star-thorned night a thigh unkindled by nails; but in this embrace of words, we still feel, you and I.

dreamcatching

'We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.' -Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

'If you believe in the shadow, you cannot help believing in the light.' -Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Cogwheels

'Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.' -Rainer Maria Rilke

'Our love of each other was like two long shadows kissing without hope of reality.' -Anaïs Nin

lanterns dark out of light's depth night shines its shadows

'Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.' -Anaïs Nin

Tell me, always; each of your words a touch, leaving your fingerprints on my lips as I read them; you are here, felt to my toes, held in my chest, seen night and day, rippling each breath with your name.

most ardently

'Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.' -Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

our paths uncrossed ghost of a chance

Still I see you there, in your grandmother's room; the quiet of her clock-ticking heartchamber, words nestling in your tea-drowsed eyes; your grandfather carrying winter dusk fire in his clothes, in his embering smile; and outside, a white horse, its blue shadow lengthening, painting your dreams.

The night, the dawn almost mute now, names still muttered to the amber light, but unheard; tasting the honey that I can no longer speak, rough edges forced soft, being barred from you, only dreaming the words your flame used to spell out.

elude the light - the softness of our fall

'Further, you will imagine a mouth, which like flame again for my figure declares its need of ashes, curls and flickers and bursts here and there into a true rose of heat, ...' (1/2) -Virginia Woolf, The Life of Violet

We read and then we love, always, the moontide tugging at me, swallowing me, until I surface, come back, gasping for breath, dissolved; and always, the moon-silent sky, paper-blank with darkness, begs me to shower it in stars, for want of light; always, and never, enough.

Our words are spiegel im spiegel: I read you, and see me, through you; in endless mirrors you write me - and so I write, and keep writing, to see you through my words; to thumb your image, your being, to bloom, like flowering tea in the water-hot glass of my screen.

every cloud dances your wings

the thrill of new words from a voice known by heart

Let go, my voice, but deeper, under your skin; unmute, speak heart.

moon-lone

to miss you is a blackbird's shadow; light fallen silent, words caged

"Like a little warm coal in my heart burns your saying that you miss me. I miss you oh so much." -Vita, Love Letters: Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West

You are more than the poem, you are the paper where it meets the pen, the tip pressed down, releasing ink to make words real, felt in every fibre of your being, cupping the weight of my hand as I lace you with shining darkness, black-blue storms brought to calm in your bruises

Your heartbeat rhymes with my breathing, and your skin reads my veins through your coat, finding the words your cheeks speak of, as silence's pulse whispers 'still, still', and the floor creaks the thunder I swallow

unscatter me, fields flock me home

One blackbird sang us both to sleep. In that field alone, time froze; not from humming with history, but because you had passed by, a flame-hair garlanding the hedge, perfume lingering, our hands touching in space, not in time. One book in my lap on the bus, one glance in passing; nearly, but never.

The gasp of the heart, still, when reading your words, finding us there; soft and hard, vulnerable, accepted, ourselves, at last. Words, but such words. Yours, mine. Ours. Your memories meet mine, in fields of darkest indigo, the colour of missing you, missing us (1/2);

Russet dreams of an eye-blue sky, the smile in your step, and your hair springing fall as we walk

new old books - the scent of autumn leaves and apple blossom

Reading with you, the page-crisp quiet, the warmth of your nearness, our breathing of hushed words, the coffee-steeped café enveloping us; and bookhunting together, our coats holding autumn, seeing treasures in your eyes as your fingers graze the spines - yes, I still dream of that, too.

on night's heartstrings my shadow strokes your light to life

'But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you' -W.B. Yeats