Last night he asked me why none of my poetry is for the future
Why I'm always writing of the past, writing about what's lost
The first time you told me poetry was something you didn't understand I handed you my first book of poems and told you to skim through the pages, to drink in my words, to memorise the verse
You didn't read the poetry, but you did memorise the freckles on my face, the crooks of my elbows, the curve of my eyebrow
We drank whiskey on your terrace and I recited Neruda to you
You wrote the history of Barcelona on my fingertips with your lips,
We stuffed our nightmares in pillowcases, burned them with the leftover bread in your mother's fridge,
It was funny that no matter how much we tried we couldn't fix one another
Your broken wouldn't heal mine, and my half written poems wouldn't dissolve your pain
Last night he asked me why all my poetry was for the past
Why I didn't write for the future.
When I kiss him his lips still taste like burnt memories
His touch feels like home, but this home is not mine
When I write for the past I'm writing about you
The future holds nothing i need to write about