bittersweet

 

I'm not bitter, I'm sweet

 

You were supposed to give it to me before I messed everything up

So I bought my own copy from that bookshop in Balham

Sat in the Sylvan Post in Forest Hill with rum and coke

 and started at the beginning

 

I imagined it was you reading it to me

I replaced my inner voice with yours

I wonder if we cried and laughed at the same lines

I like to think we did

 

Every other page, a tear, sometimes plural

A mirror reflection of similar things we once said

 only to each other in private space 

Those WhatsApp messages between us started to make sense

You throwing words and phrases in from the book

Not just for effect

 

I’d turn one page after the other and again there was another situation

I felt almost resembling that in our history together

But please, I hope neither one of us commits suicide

And that one day the lovers’ tenderness resembles ours

If our story is never to truly be, I hope it’s as gorgeous as this one,

as bittersweet between the lines

I messaged you thanking you for bringing this into my world

and mentioned my favourite lines and passages

I am pleased that I reached out to let you know how this affected me so deeply

Knowing you wouldn’t reply

 

I'm not bitter, we're sweet

 

He gave me a book to read

Him

Yes, he who you once told me you thought was ‘nice’

And I agreed just to help the awkwardness between us

whilst being unsure your motivation for saying that

I sensed deep down you knew I was only emotionally protecting myself

Despite me lying through my teeth

 

He handed me a physical copy

just a little before I discovered yours

A lesson in hope and stoicism

He told me which chapter to begin with first

 and which lines would resonate with me as brothers kissing me off the page 

Thinking about yours and not being told what to do,

lush lines always land harder when you discover them by yourself 

Stumbling across turns of phrase

Happenstance,

being kissed almost by happy accident

 

 

 

I moved onto another book shortly after

The book that I am tasked to read

by my monthly gay men’s reading group

Again, like his, like yours, it’s about love and hope

 

Drifting in and out of interest

As it’s not half as good as yours

And like his I am reading it in my own voice

and feel no need to tell anyone where I’ve been kissed

And like his, and unlike yours, I’ve not been kissed yet

No standout lines that hold me hostage 

Yours which holds a line most bittersweet

That speaks of a me to you right now

 

If you ever read or hear this poem by happenstance or by force,

not of your own volition,

I want you to know this is the line that ripped me most

 

‘I miss you more than I remember you.’

 

Sat in the Sylvan Post

with rum and coke for nearly twelve hours straight

reading from beginning chapter to end

as each word felt intimate

and made me feel I was somehow very close to you

 

Let's not be bitter but at least stay bittersweet.