Suburban Decay

Words rattle silently across the tip of my tongue,

fatal falter, 

tragic tell,

your eyes, 

so softly, 

grazing my lips.

The moment pulls me under.

Am I seen?

In bloodrush panic,

youthful flush,

I swallow,

condemning the unsaid,

to decay into consonants and confessions.

I console myself with mythical tomorrows,

where you will surface on a foaming tide,

triumphant atop your oyster shell,

pearlescent beauty.

But the North Sea is far too cold,

for divine debutantes.

Too soon you dissolve into twilight.

Sweetness, we live on borrowed time.

Before Tonight breathes her last,

we become heaven-faced,

amorphous amour,

writing your name,

in rose blood,

across my soul.

-Rob Padfield