Crush 3.
Freya Sacksen (Anglia Ruskin University)
Once upon a time,
| I meet you And we’re both available, As we work our craft together, My hands bloody with ink, And you gently smear it on your lips, And that’s it, that’s the story; We didn’t meet like that, Both taken with someone else, Affection would an unwritten rule, So I stammer and blush and insult, And glare, and you laugh and retreat, And set our boundary walls high; |
I tell you I love you, It’s not a sign of imperfection, It’s just my heart echoing with yours, And you smile, wide like the dawn, And kiss me like a song, And we live happily ever after; We don’t live in that world, My love is sometimes a mark, Sometimes a scar, sometimes… It doesn’t matter. We show affection As best able, while wounds heal And whatever I do, I don’t say it. |
Whatever I do,
I don’t say I love you.
It’s just a crush.
Freya Sacksen is a UK-based poet from Aotearoa New Zealand. Their work has been published in digital journal #EnbyLife, and they have a forthcoming pamphlet from DIRT Imprint with Clare Pollard. Their poetry embraces storytelling, ecopoetics, liminality and queer identity. Their current favorite example of the Order Lepidoptera is Gonepteryx rhamni.
