For Chloe
i.  
I’m in these mountains

alone, bar the magpies and my own

stray thoughts. Cigarette burns

are stitched into the wood of my table,

marking the days between each

bad decision; we know their names

better than our own, we wrote them

onto back of poems, placed them

into shoe boxes under our beds, and swore

to never revisit them again.

But we writers seek intimacy

on the inside of another person.

We burn scars into broken bodies,

onto withered desks, alternate

our drinking habits with the hands

of a clock: sunrise, shiraz and

a fistful of prescription pills;

the lips of a stranger

after five pm: ghosts that unlock

our hidden trauma and don’t try

to make us breakfast

in the morning.  
ii.   
This mountain mist

clears my mind. I start the day

with a cigarette and coffee.

I don’t smoke often, but this feels right.

As if you linger in the smoke,

in the taste of tobacco, nicotine,

an early death. There’s a chair outside

this broken window, knocked over

with its legs pointing toward the sky.

I have no desire to pick it up.

I like it better this way: purposeless

and drunk. This is by no means a metaphor

on your life—or my own. Except,

maybe it is. Maybe we’re both looking for someone

to come and pick us up,

make us right again.

As if we can’t do that ourselves.

As if we can.
iii.  
These grey skies

are the colour of my dreams.

It’s a good day when I can’t see the sun;

when clouds shield my insecurities

so I don’t have to.

My notebook is a blank canvas.

I stub out a deflated dart and think

of rivers, painting self-portraits

in desolated parks. A cool wind picks up,

makes the leaves in the trees vibrate.

I shiver with them and wish

I was home again. These mountains taste

too clean. When the rain starts,

it pools inside the ashtray

to make the perfect shade of ink

for poetry. This isn’t a metaphor

for your life, or my own.

I swear, it’s not. Except,

maybe it is.