Seasons of You.

HER - PART ONE

My hands tremble and shiver and shake. I peer unconsciously at the millions of stars above, imperiously dotting the Milky Way.
And even though my mind is so shrouded with inapprehensible thoughts and meaningless tragedies, all I can see is you.
You and your ripe pink lips, your hazel green eyes that hold so much shine, your nose, slightly crooked with the lip stick marks I leave there secretly.

In the Winter time I'll curl myself into your warmth. Embedding myself into the crook of your pale arms, the hollow of your neck where I whisper things adoringly. A cheap little gas heater is all we can afford, pay packets barely making the rent. But we'll just make love all winter long and sip hot chocolate and tea by the window, watching the world go by as we sit in our own little haven. And maybe sometimes, if we're feeling dangerous, we'll go play hide and seek in the snow at midnight and stay out until our toes are frozen off and our noses are dripping and red. Then we'll take a hot bath together with candles in the dark, drinking the bottle of expensive red wine you stole from your father.

Tiny droplets of rain spatter the coat I'm wearing. It's yours. The hood covers my eyes, drapes against my damp forehead obscuring the scenery. But I'm fine with that. The colour of the darkening sky reminds me too much off your faded coffee mug.
So I lean my heavy head against the tree trunk and close my tiring eyes. Sleep, he wants to enfold me in his arms and carry me away. But I fight against him to see you.
You and your baggy tee shirts with crude pictures you make me wear, your shaggy black hair that falls over your eyes every time you laugh, your pale flesh behind your pierced ears where I leave bite marks that tell stories.

In the Summer time we'll drink raspberry cordial from plastic mugs with twisty straws and umbrellas. In the heat of the sun you'll sit beneath the oak tree with your hands tucked perfectly behind your head and your eyes closed, humming to a familiar song on the radio. At midnight, with the air still outlandishly balmy, we'll strip our shorts and singlets and dance naked beneath the sprinkler on the front lawn. And spontaneously make love, not caring that the neighbour's dogs are barking from behind the fence loudly, because all that matters is that your mouth is pressed against mine.

Thunder crashes insanely around the walls of nature. I'm hiding my ears from the brash sound. Clouds have covered the skies, closing the gates to heaven for the night. Rain stings my eyes and mats my hair around my angular face. A thought, or a memory, (it's hard to decipher between the two these days) is provoked by a shard of lightning brightening the sharp black sky. You. You and I, that vulgar winter spent hauled up in your parent's cottage, and I awoke from a nightmare just as lightning struck and you sat there, all loving and caring and amazing and pushed the sweat soaked hair from my clouded eyes. Memories of you and your careful hands, covered in calluses, caressing my sun kissed skin, your rippling muscles, in which I so many times over licked chocolate from in our passionate endearments, your heart beat that lulled me to sleep countless times.

In the Fall we'll take strolls along the old fishing wharf, hand in hand. And we'll both stop to gaze into each other's eyes as waves crash roughly against the old wooden planks, wetting our feet. I'll watch you cringe with smiling eyes as I sit on you and pluck golden orange and red leaves from the dry grass and stick them all in your black mess of hair. Patiently  I'll wait on the door step for you, wearing my favourite hat and bracelet. And when you arrive home from your family holiday you'll run up the drive to meet me at the water stained steps, take my hand and pull me up to your face. I'll faintly here you say "I love you" as a gentle Autumn rain patters our shoulders and I smother you with cherry glossed lips.

I've sat in this sodden mess for eternity it feels. The thunder has diminished into the fields, rain has died down to a miserable drizzle and the clouds have risen above the mountains. My drenched body convulses with detached feeling and I wearily watch the glorious sunrise from the gully. The promising light drenches every unhidden inch of earth in a deep golden honey. The radiance beams upon rain silken leaves, glistening. And a tear rolls off the tip of my frozen nose as I recall the days where we once watched this together. You and your crazy cute remarks about my hair on a Sunday morning when we watched the wake of dawn, your ridiculous habit of leaving coffee mugs off the coasters and pulling the blanket off me in the middle of the night, your torpid goodnights you 'whispered' to me in the early hours after crawling home from a night with the boys.

In the Spring we'll lie lazily amongst the fields of daisies and brilliant yellow daffodils, counting clouds and eating cotton candy from one another's fingertips. You'll trail strawberry flavoured kisses along my ribs and caress my nose with yours. I'll drag you down to my mother's house and have her bake us cookies with sprinkles and we'll take a picnic to the old farm down the road and watch the new born lambs frolic through the long, untamed grass. On a frosty Spring morning, you'll plant wet kisses on my eyelids as I dream wondrously, curled into your pillow. And as you sit in the old rocking chair we took from that old man down the street, you'll write a message in the dewy window then leave for work. I'll awake and stumble into the kitchen to see your scrawled writing slowly melting into the morning sun, "UOY EVOL I", and grin.

I shield my bloodshot eyes from the morning sun's harsh glare, and I think about how beautiful this wilderness is. It reminds me of you, wild, untamed. My feet feel numb as I push myself from the drenched dirt, my knees knock and I stumble forward. A tingle travels through my body, pulses through my veins as I soak up the warming sun. The sleeves of your coat hang way past my hands and drip with water, making a flicking noise as the droplets hit the wet grass. I trudge dejectedly down the slippery hill, my mind still shrouded with inapprehensible thoughts and meaningless tragedies.
I wander down your street, towards your house. I can see your fluorescent green mailbox shaped like a dog from 6 houses away. My hand touches something squishy in the pocket of your coat, my frozen fingertips clench the slip of damp paper and carefully pull it from the material.
Its there, almost yelling at me, shouting at me from the paper. Your name. written in bold green letters. (Green's your favourite colour). I turn the envelope over in my moist wrinkled hands, fingers like prunes. 18 times I turned that letter over before I reached the end of your broken concrete driveway. White cloudy smoke billows from the brick chimney of your house, our house? No, no, your house. The beady black eyes of your mailbox dog stares at me peculiarly as I slip the letter with your name on, into the slot. I stand there awhile, thinking. Staring. Wondering. And then I see the curtain of the bedroom window flinch and a miraculous looking brunette peeks with bedroom eyes out the dew traced glass. Her gaze burns into me, and I can't stop staring but I hear her call your name, an alarming tone pierces her voice and now I'm running, my heavy feet taking me as far away as I can get. And I didn't stop to see you standing on your front step in your socks and boxers, yelling my name. And you didn't check the mailbox to find my letter. The letter telling you that I miss the way you smile at me when my pancakes don't turn out right. Telling you that my mother says hello and my father wonders about you. Telling you that, of all things, I wish I could smell your skin, that delicious musky scent that is all yours. Telling you that I miss the way your worn out shoes slap the pavement on a warm February day. Telling you that I can't stand the way other boys kiss me, because only you know where all my sensitive spots are, only you know. Telling you that I can't stop thinking about you and your dishevelled hair (don't ever cut it, it's beautiful and sexy). Telling you that after all this time, I still fall in love with you 34 million times over. Every. Single. Day.

HIM - PART TWO


My lungs feel heavy against tired ribs as I fail to steady my breath once again.
The mirror is fogged with shower steam and I can just make out my bloodshot eyes, clouded with littered thoughts of you.
You and your creased eyes that glow russet in the summer sun, your dimpled cheeks that make me want to cry with impossible amounts of joy, your lips, so plump and red and delicious that always remind me of cherries; sweet.

In the Winter time I'll wrap my arms around your waist and we'll dance in the infinite darkness wearing matching socks with pom-poms on them that you brought us for Christmas. You'll watch me from across the room with those enchanting eyes, as big as moons from distant galaxies, and beg me to massage your frozen toes. We'll lay in the snow pretending we're on cloud nine and make snow angels until we've giggled so much we can't feel out tongues. Then we'll race inside to jump beneath the shower and create our own steam.

Condensation drips from the oval mirror now, and I can still faintly make out your plump lip marks you left there for me last Spring. She tried to clean them away but I can still make them out, and I'm fine with that, its one of the only things I have left of you.
Apart from your cheery chap stick I keep tucked in my draw, it smells just like you used to in the Summer.
So I hesitantly leave the bathroom, the steam settling, making my skin prickle with beads of moisture. She's probably wondering what I'm up to. But I don't want to leave just yet; it's not safe to think of you anywhere but here.
So I stop in the doorway and remember my 19th birthday and your sneaky ways, like making cupcakes that spelled out our names with hundreds and thousands, your laugh that could be mistaken for a sweet symphony, your jutting hips that bear elephant tattoos and a birth mark shaped like the union jack.

In the Summer time we'll sit under the oak tree and draw smiley faces and kittens on each others backs until the sun disappears behind the moon. Then I'll watch you prance around the lawn in some manic rain dance until you give up and make love to me under the purple umbrella stuck in the ground. You'll attempt to make lemonade from lemons off our neighbour's tree and you'll forget the sugar, again. But I'll hide my sour bitten face and nod with fake delight and you'll beam at me from under thick lashes. I'll sneak out early to cook you breakfast and you'll awake before I can bring it to you in our creaky old bed, so you make the house smell like a Californian coffee shop while I shower with the door open.

The bathroom has emptied of steam and your seal of approval has disappeared off the wet mirror. She's beckoning me with the voice of a siren now and I grudgingly obey the fierce brunette and retire to our bed. Or is it my bed? (I wish it was still our bed). She's waiting atop the duvet she brought a week or so back, you would hate it, and she's wearing lingerie which she calls sexy, and arousing. But when I think of sexy, I think of you and your old holey rugby socks you took from your dad and your black boy short underwear with the rabbit on the bum and the crude tee shirts of mine that I made you wear and you hated it, your locks all tangled in the morning when I wake you with butterfly kisses, your makeup smudged across your rosy cheeks, your hands with the painted red nails that so teasingly dig into my muscular arms.

In the Fall we'll wake up early to clean the yard before our parents arrive for the Sunday lunch you insist of having. You'll pucker your cherry red lips and flutter your un-made eyes until I give in and agree to have the family over. Then we'll go throw the season changed leaves at one another until the rain starts again and turns everything a soggy brown. I'll pick you up from work in our beat up little car and take you out to dinner at the Asian place I know you hate, just to see you smirk at me from behind a flustered face and to have you punch me in the arm weakly. You'll eat your noodles in silence and lock me out of the bathroom at home, ignoring me until I fall to my knees and smother the backs of your tanned thighs with kisses and whisper "I love you" into your towel robe.

I made love to her, but it wasn't really love. I thought of you the whole time as she kissed my neck and shoulders and chest and as she ran her fingertips across my back and nibbled my ears. She doesn't know me like you did. Perhaps you should've drawn up a map before our departure.
I lay there panting and puffing and huffing and my tired eyes droop, forcing me into a dream where I think of you. You and your crazy, mad ideas that always got us into trouble, like when you decided we should 'take' a lamb from the old farm down the road because they had so many and wouldn't mind. And you convinced me with your sugar drop eyes and candy cane smile, then we had a visit from an angry farmer the next morning, your obsessive quirks, like you getting silly about me leaving the Hello Kitty toaster plugged in or the window open on a Summer night because someone might break in, your cute teeth that you bear when you're angry at me or when you smile so stupidly you blush.

In the Spring we'll picnic in the meadow filled with long grass and daffodils, eating strawberries and cream and suck on banana and coffee lollipops and make shapes from fluffy purple clouds as the sun goes down. You'll kiss me on the neck leaving a bite mark to remind me of yourself then make love to me in the grass as the cicadas chirp and the dragonflies drone. You'll leave a lipstick message on the bathroom mirror for me to read when I rise, your perfect lips on the edge of the glass. "Marry Me", your writing scrawled intelligently in passionfruit purple. I'll smile with such knowing that you're completely mine.

I smother my face with my favourite pillow as the sun peaks through the slit in the curtain, and I think about how beautiful the sunrise is and then I think of you. You and all your crystal elegance. The sun tickles my uncovered toes and she's jiggling around on the bed next to me trying to put on pants and shake off pesky flies. I savour the silence for a few more minutes before I grumble with a morning choked voice, "good morning", then I stumble across the room to find my socks.
For what seemed like an eternity, I waited for the jug to boil, it was really only a few minutes. I stared at my favourite mug; the faded blue had gotten even duller. Then she goes and screams my name with her high pitched voice, so intense a dog should be the only one able to hear it. The mug, the one you teased me about mercilessly, dropped to the wooden flooring in surprise. I stared at it blankly, and then quickly ran to the bedroom where she stood at the window piercing the air with that treacherous noise. I didn't have to look to know it was you.
The front door opened with a bang and I stood there clad in my boxers and socks you brought me last Winter, only to see you running down the street, your locks bouncing against the back of your coat. My coat.
I looked down at my hand and the red envelope that had your name on it. Then I yelled your name, so loudly my own ears blocked. But you didn't turn around, you didn't stop running.
The letter caught in the wind and I watched the tiny red piece of paper drift away in the cool breeze. You'll never get my letter.
The letter telling you that I miss the way you run your fingers through my scruffy hair and make jokes about chopping it all off when I'm sleeping. Telling you that I can't stand the way my mother looks at me because of the lack of your eccentric smile and button nose at the dinner table. Telling you that I wish we could just say hello again and exchange a smile that's only made for one another. Telling you that I miss your sneaky kisses on a Sunday morning when I'm pretending to sleep and the sun is playing in your hair. Telling you that I kept your cherry chap stick and the lipstick kisses because I can't stand the thought of erasing the last of you from my life. Telling you that I day dream of meeting you again and marrying you behind a waterfall with hibiscus flowers in your hair, just like you always wanted. Telling you that after all this time, I still fall in love with you 34 million times over. Every. Single. Day.