Sometimes my lover talks sickly sweet
Of words a custard coating –
a yellow, sunshine cream.
They are thick dollops of cloud,
sweetened milk, soft smell of baby heads.
The fat little curves of cats’ bellies,
and stiff white peaks of egg.
Spooned with a clank of best silver cutlery
into tiny little dishes.
He speaks like whipped cream jammed straight out the can
with fizzy out-of-season strawberries,
and that mushy musty kind of smell; like the inside of a cupboard.
those red fleshy berries seem punctuated with pretty pink and soft
or maybe taste like metal and aerosol.
He winds a cream to wrap around my eyes and bind my ears
that yellow skin, yes, he films and veils with sun skimmed surfaces,
with fogs of cottony candyfloss, chemical pink,
that tacky stick, strings of gunk that lace up my hair
and melt down filthy like slushy old snow.
Silky pink strands beaded with dark red shards.
His voice is bound together with cornflower,
emulsified eggs,
and lumps of watery hot chocolate powder,
the marshmallow all tangled and crusty.
We have big fat droplets of cloying conversations
with condensed milk trickles in my eyes and
the smell of old cream and sad milk in my hair.
His voice flickers and glimmers like
slimy silver fish skins’ scales.
This iridescence which glitters and flutters
Like we are inside a kaleidoscope, all the glowing dregs of colour scattered
and those glassy eyes roll up at the supermarket white lights gleaming
Reclining, sleek limpidity on ice chips,
Like origami only just uncrumpled with creases cut still.
He has glossy scales that spill purple red hot green guts –
this blood steams as it gushes, choking, splutters
and the smooth and the hot collide
in the slippery feel of my cheek on his back – sticky with sleep –
snuggly, snuggly intestines curling up against one another
like warm gummy worms, sugar dusted.
Squishy doughnuts and floppy flumps.
But then sometimes he talks thin and weak
and we have these crystal conversations,
with fine little granules dried out at the edges like fried snowflakes.
Like bowls of sugar left out in cafes to collect
Clumps of candied bunches that crumble, dry out in lumps
Cling together hopefully, hopelessly
Dusty white dandruff drifting listlessly into peaks.
When he talks like that he spreads
That thin whitish smear on iced buns, hesitantly pale,
sickly – translucent stains, a smudge of sweetness.
Like sugar that burns into blackened, smoking caramel,
He spins soft syrupy sculptures, that collapse and dissolve
and chases old sugar mice, blind and singing,
and our laced up bodies seem nothing more than confectionery.
Those conversations of sugar were swimming with water
bleeding out drippy icing, moulding white,
and leaking gluey jam.
They were sunken sponge cakes collapsed under frosting.
and the sucked in sore cheeks of a toffee.
Fleeting pleasure perhaps – yes, ok, let’s say that.
But even in our jammiest red heart of hearts, we knew;
all they left us with was numb gums and fillings,
too sweet a tooth
and empty bellies.
Image credit: Tiger500; image has been cropped
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