Inspiration

by DS Maolalai

perhaps

it would have been better

if the time I spent

living with you

had been spent

living with you,

rather than lying awake while you snored

and crossing out lines

in my head

of poems I wouldn’t end up writing,

pruning at metaphors

and suggesting small adjustments

to the tone of your voice

and the colour your hair was,

until both became

as black as the ink I write with,

and curled on your skin

like scribbles on paper.

waking up together

with our legs touching

should have been waking up

to a morning fresh as apple juice,

not an excuse to start a fresh argument

and then

an excuse to write about one.

 

About the Author:

DS Maolalai is a graduate of English Literature from Trinity College in Dublin and recently returned there after four years abroad in the UK and Canada. He has been writing poetry and short fiction for the past five or six years with some success. His writing has appeared in such publications as 4’33’, Strange Bounce and Bong is Bard, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Out of Ours, The Eunoia Review, Kerouac’s Dog, More Said Than Done, Star Tips, Myths Magazine, Ariadne’s Thread, The Belleville Park Pages, Killing the Angel and Unrorean Broadsheet, by whom he was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He also recently published a short collection with Encircle Publications entitled ‘Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden’.