When I was broken hearted I turned up to your house one evening with my eyes wide like a ghost.

Come, you said. I’ve been pouring for you. And you helped me peel off my clothes down to my underwear so I could sit in your bath. And then you climbed in too.

In between us was a platter on a piece of rimu and you reached over and opened the window so you could smoke out of it while I sat with my knees drawn up

to my chest, unravelling what I hated most about what I was feeling while my life leaked out my eyes and into the water.

You didn’t mind at all - we’re basically at sea, you said, tipping more gin into the cup.

This isn’t a poem about heartbreak (we get it, you say, you loved someone and now you don’t, it was years ago Michael let it go). It's a poem about a different type of mourning -

one you wake up to and realise you'll never be able to be back in those moments. Everyone has gone away and done their respective fallings-in-loves

and we all still want each other’s second hand smoke
but no longer know how to ask.