Raspberry Poetry

A scene stained with memories, as I try to remember each curve of the hill.

There are raspberry stains on my blouse today, my organs melt, low, I stow my stare

Mirrored memories merge in me, the quiet kiss of cold Manchester air

We’d bought raspberries together, for lovers’ breakfast in bed

A berry splashed, the kitchen floor a 60s painting, a poppy pink red

Babe, watch me, waste another hundred thousand pages

Writing about the dissolving creases of your lips

Your lips on my shoulder, easing my biting bra-strap, tight against skin

Blooming boldness made me kiss you in a love fest, in broad view, thinking of sin

I touch my shoulder, revering remembrance, my nostalgic net of neurons

I remember you, when I climb two steps at a time, never just one

Your lips, dewy fresh freesias, brushed with summer heat, your breath

Your skin, soft as still water, an inviting largesse

Sleep, with you, was the quieting of a restless child’s pride

We were young, undone, swollen inside, an endless youth, all tested, all tried

You took me to the Brontë parsonage, kiss of the wind, our palms a romantic moor

A surprise, an unsaid deep desire, you were a decadent number on the dance floor

The wind spoke to us, fiery whisperings of Emily Brontë’s inspiration

Our passions and pictures punctuated with windy rhythm, and your soft condescension

You painted an ease in me, my brand of fine wine

I climb another two steps, the ghost of your hand in mine intwined

You read to me, a sunset of serenity, your voice ringing poetry

You were surprisingly, pulling me in softly, only to choose Ray Bradbury

Should I forget these raspberry stains, the taste of your fingers, the taste of your mouth

Sluggishly tart, warm hands, coffee stained, English summer in the South

I’d kiss you into an infinity, melt into you under sunlight, feather noises at you, loud

That soft focus of your face, voice among the birds, a clandestine competitive crowd

I wish I could have you beside me at 3 am

A sleepy, wild, needy, softly purring kitten

Your kisses, again, waking me—like wet dewy jewels on grass

Your eyes calling all descriptive green gemstones crass

Your fingers curling in me and my lips in a smile

Loving me in inches that could’ve measured miles

But if you kiss me again, a whirlpool of tongues, ‘You and Me’ once more?

I’d melt in your arms, like foamy fingers of the waves on a shore

I would have burned rooms with a few bottled sparks

But you left so suddenly, a firefly in the dark

Will this ‘missing you’ get easier? Will it ever stop?

Will time heal all wounds, swoop in to clot?

I miss, I miss, I miss, year after year after year

Another raspberry stained blouse, I wish you were here

I have become a Romantic sibling of Lady Macbeth’s

Reminiscing stained fingers with mad regret

So I line words here, to stow madness outside me, too pathetic for it to be called poetry

About the decaying ways of love, regret worth toilet tubs, a Top Withens like ruin for everyone to see

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This is the first poem I wrote in its entirety within half an hour. It came to me as easily as water flows, and that has coloured this in pride and progress for me. It's not perfect, I don't think it'll ever be--but it's here and it's done, and sometimes there's nothing better than palpable existence, rather than untouchable perfection always chasing further away the more you try to get closer to it.