Spoonful of Sugar
21:40
Loving you is like
hanging upside down in a quaint confectioner's shop
blood-rush-sugar-rush
dizzy from the sugar high
guilty pleasure like
pin-pricks attacking my taste buds
and every nerve fibre that hangs off a cliff-edge
the toxic tingle of sweet-and-sours
making my mouth pucker
i n v o l u n t a r i l y
it is tumbling confusion and dazzled reverence
and the stomach-churning gravitational thrill
of roller coaster adrenaline
when it
d
r
o
p
s
it is being blinded
by skies of exotic colour
inhaling
with the desperation of a dying soldier
the air, a riot of candied sugar fragrances
all clamouring for attention
you are everywhere and nowhere
all at once
and I am as drawn to you
as inescapably as bees are to nectar
your promises
when you wrap your pinkie finger tightly round mine
taste like strawberry kisses
dusted with icing sugar to make them pretty
subtly seductive and saccharine sweet
your compliments
when you call me beautiful
are toffee caramel
- G O L D E N -
melt-in-the mouth smooth
butterscotch lingering on the edges of your lips
that quirk into a flirtatious smirk
when my rising blush blooms to rosy apples
your dark humour and dark eyes
are black licorice - acquired taste, slightly addictive,
numbing poison that hurts the insides of my cheeks
when your rough laugh scrapes across my skin
raising goosebumps in its wake
you are the playground thief of pocket money
but my sweet tooth is never satiated.
your husky voice excoriates the soft flesh of my ear
when you confess your dangerous secrets into existence
frosted lips against my cheek
ice-cool
twisting my veins
much like the red-and-white twisting
of peppermint candy canes
that - S - N - A - P - my teeth
much like my heart
S - N - A - P - S
in two
when someone asks if I am yours
and you laugh with easy nonchalance
and say that we're just friends.
my eyes catch
on the faded red imprint just beneath your jaw line
and tell-tale teeth marks in your neck
they fall
on your open collar and messy hair
rumpled clothes and shoes on the wrong feet
and I want to scream
sweet jars crashing and collapsing
obliterating my heart
burying it under sheets of shredded glass
but you are blind-drunk at 3am
and while I am stumbling on carpets of broken glass
you are stumbling through the door I left open
just in case
knock-door-run was our favourite kind of trouble
but I never dreamt that it would be my heart
being knock-knock-knocked upon by your knuckles
and that you would be t r o u b l e of the favourite kind
(your retreating heels drag up clouds of dust
as my clumsy fingers grasp at thin air
i will never catch -
you have mastered illusion with a finery
that would make even
h o u d i n i
turn in his grave)
out of sight
- always, out of sight -
out of reach, out of touch, out of league
(but never out of mind)
when you tell me you love me
and swear that she’s your soulmate
in the same breath
I blanch
the cloying sweetness of strawberry kisses
clogging my throat
it is nauseating - crawls up my airways and chokes up my lungs
blood leaden with candy-sweet cruelty
puncturing cavities in my bones
and when you tell me I'm the best thing in your life
not a fraction of sobriety on the surface
my teeth break and crack
on burnt caramel that clamps them shut
blackened treacle gluing them together
shattered enamel avalanching into the spaces between my cheeks
when I try to say you're the best thing in mine
and having you like this is better than not having you at all
Loving you is like
spinning in a sweet shop
swallowing a handful of repeat prescription pills
saying your name ten times fast
in the hope that it will lose all meaning
tongue tripping over the syllables
like sticky hands caught in a candy jar
because a spoonful of sugar
helps the medicine go down
in the most
way.
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