11:17

And I fell in love again with
That album you once promised me
At 11:17 tonight

You know I don't like numbers but
elevenseventeen
Doesn't look quite...right

I know I'm the artist
And you've grown into a scientist but
We're all human and you and I both cry

Silence...
My English tutor says silence is trauma

They all say that but I-
I think I can handle it.

Silence is regret, words I will never say
All the poems I have written like a map on my face
Tattooed on my arms when I hold you tight
Scrawled in coffee stains
Sometimes you see them, sometimes you don't
And sometimes they hurt and bleed and fade in time

They are stories I will never write
A song for a scribbled out name
That my love keeps writing again and again

It's so very quiet at 11:17
Just the tapping of keyboards
And the tapping of my heart

'I'd tap that', my lips move to the words
A vulgarly public
Vulgar persona says

A cage I wrap around myself
When warm comforting arms aren't wrapped around me
A mask I wear to hide my grief

A loud, bold, crass girl
He fell in love with.
But that girl wasn't me.

That girl,
She lives in his memory
That beautiful seventeen year old with long black curls
The one who broke his heart when he broke mine
She's trapped there

But I...
I ran away.
I crawled back into your open arms.

These are all the things you know
The stories I have no words to say

But somehow, you hear them.

All this devotion was rushing out of me and I...
I just realised that I am a liar

Because I always...
I always think that people are lying to me
And I lie back
An eye for an eye

But sometimes...
Sometimes they tell the truth and I
I lie, anyway, because I know of no other way.
Sometimes they tell the truth and I
I can't see that but somehow I know that

You always do.
Or, at least, I hope you do.
And I try my hardest to be honest to you.

It's 11:17 and my head is full of questions
On 23/7/2012 I was sixteen and full of answers
But now I am seventeen and full of...

I don't know.
Nothing, really
Empty coffee cups and long handwritten notes I will never send.

Questions of science, science and progress...
Tonight, they are much louder than my heart.

for a dear friend.