late night company

it’s 3 a.m.
the wind is howling outside.
someone is sleeping peacefully
in my bed.

I stand alone in the kitchen,
wrapped in a hoodie, a pair of boxers,
and my slippers
- the fluffy ones.

the sink is dripping still,
the fridge still makes that strange noise
now and then.
the clock stopped
- the only sign that something changed.

I take a careful drag from one of your cigarettes,
like a thief, in the dark,
with the window open.
its smell
- your smell -
keeps me company.

I have this silly image of you
in my head
complaining about flowers,
and how much you hated them.
not because you were allergic,
but because people kept forgetting
that you were.

I’ll come by tomorrow,
bring you a fresh bunch
of perfect white lilies.
I’m pretty sure,
you would’ve found it funny.

______

late night company by Dimitrios Kokkinos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

enemy

every day I wait
in my cold, dark prison,
for a simple,
honest,
“good morning.”
like you mean it.

every day I see your eyes,
on the other side
of the mirror,
and I know it won’t be
today.

______

enemy by Dimitrios Kokkinos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

trapped outside the prison gates

dark grey clouds outside,
a hint of rain in the air,
my bones can feel it.
I am so
tired,
in a way that no sleep can mend.
tired of worrying
about a future I cannot control
or predict.
I would like to feel important,
I would really like to feel unique.
As if there aren’t millions exactly
like me, as if I’m not
replaceable in every respect. As if
it wasn’t certain beyond doubt
that history would unfold
in exactly the same way
whether I existed
or not.
I see you, suddenly,
and take a quick, short, breath

as you move in closer) your scent surrounds me,
earth, rain, and skin.
your lips, damaged but soft, burn
against mine.
my heart pounds harder and faster,
then it audibly skips a beat.
I close my eyes
and slowly let
this
world
fade (you move away,

back to your work.
the rain trickles down the window.
my coffee is just a hint colder.
my screen stares back at me,
no single extra word written in my
Project Description.
I’m really not good at this
grant-proposals-business. is it
time for a change, a different job maybe?
Am I too old for change? Too
irrelevant?

______

a tribute to e. e. cummings

trapped outside the prison gates by Dimitrios Kokkinos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License