i just want to
binge watch harry potter on a white wine hangover
with you
drink tea in bed
spill it on your white duvet and not wash it for a week
pike on the party and
hang out instead
guzzle iced coffee from the dairy in the wind and
wipe your mouth with the back of my hand with the
romantic conviction of
rachel before she met ross

i want to
run into ex-boyfriends
buying dunhill blues at chaffers new world with you
go home and stay
up late talking about bad memories like
the ends of tv shows
with no episodes left to play

i want to
call in late
miss deadlines, skip birthdays, let friends down,
go out of town with my phone on silent,
slip beneath the blue waves of a surf beach and float away from reception
like a brochure selling rarotonga honeymoons

i want to
write dumb poems about head and shoulders shampoo
and hide them in your bathroom for you to find in the shower mist.
at night we’ll
walk up the steep hill to your house with our bare hands
in each other’s pockets
catching colds with wild abandon
like it was you who invented the flu injection
and a car of youths will drive past and laugh because
they’re lucky idiots

i want
all these things and i want them
with you
they’re promises i’ve been made
and no one’s been able to keep
it’s
cashing in cheques when the economy’s failing
and everyone’s getting married
and breaking up
or playing jack johnson at their wedding while beirut is burning

and you, there you are –
amongst the embers
and the bogans DMing me on instagram and the
IRD alerts
and the burnout gender reveals and the
wheat and the chaff
with your arms in that red jacket
calling my name.