By: Edward Lee

SMOKE LOST IN THE AIR

I feel the urge to start smoking,
capture you in a tendril of smoke,
hold you in my lungs,
never exhale,
poison myself
for the sake of knowing you deeper,

you who once smoked
before meeting me,
starting again when you realised
I wasn’t worth the sacrifice,

your goodbye spilling
fresh nicotine into the air.

###

TIME, TIME

If I could bend time
I would sneak the moment
of your final breaths
in the hospital bed,
placing the tip of my fingers
on your wrist,
measuring your last few beats,
the second hand of the watch you bought me
for my twenty-first birthday
no longer working.

###

THE FREEDOM OF THE GARDEN

An unplanted tree grew
in the garden
of my dreams,
while its translucent roots
took hold in my waken life,
piercing my skin
and holding me fast,
least I stray to far
from reality,
never fall too deep
into the blooms of my dreams,
dance naked around
my tree, its leaves
the colour of ecstasy.

###

MY PEN POISED HOPEFUL

My brain writes in a language
my fingers do not understand
and have no desire to learn,
so I am given bare seconds
to mis-translate words
as they travel down my arm
and splash across the pages,
unsure what I write down
is what I really mean,

but hopeful all the same,

always hopeful.