Sunbursts are short.

My face was guilded with happiness,
Like a glittering mask,
A chameleon smile shining
In stark rubies.

Gloved hands held yours,
A clasped silhouette
In atmospheric winter twilight.
Clouds pregnant with grey snow threatened,
Bulkheads of cold,
But we, oblivious, glided on
Towards a golden warmth of spaghetti hoops,
And Night Before Christmas bed covers.

Everything melded so well,
A puzzle solved and slotted together,
With no ranting and raving over missing pieces.
I fit into you like the second half
Of a locket,
You held the key to the centre, the warm
Pulsing centre that shone,
Like a sunburst,
Through all those November storm clouds.

Nights were now looked forward to,
5am's were reached without boredom,
Time spent in making plastecine hearts,
Watching bad horror movies
In the dark,
With kisses of peach schnapps,
Floating in the flickering gloom.
God, I loved you
Like the last, incomplete part of my soul,
Like some cliched worn out love song,
On repeat inside my head.
And no amount of sugar rush
From bags of JellyBellies,
Could make me say it less.

If I had seen a hesitance
In those green-brown penny coloured eyes,
I might have stopped, backed up, questioned,
But I never noticed a thing.
I barreled on, glittering
Like a princess,
Plaiting my long hair as I contemplated
Our next passionate kiss, our next
Stupid inside joke,
And wasted all my free texts
On telling you little things I'd seen
That reminded me.

Responding in kind, I thought that you,
Like me,
Were head over heels,
Feet in the air, on your back,
Swarming with laughter and love,
Choking
On pretty sentiments.

But...

Oh, but.



In January's cursed frostbitten afternoons
I found myself alone, and spiteful,
And bitter in all that cold,
Hating you and loving you, in bleak
Grey nights of solitude,
Where nothing fit anymore, and the hole
Gaping in my side was closing up
With ice.