Four Hearts In A Can

Trying to outrun
Four thousand problems

Things I Have Loved About You.

Lying on my side, and your head comes up next to mine with my arms around you, and you say "hello" with just a hint of surprise. Your cheeks flushing when I popped a pill in your mouth and your eyes firing up and you looking like a vampire who just saw the world's most moreish virgin. Your disarming moments of cuteness, when you pull faces. Seeing you dance for the first time, like a snake shedding its skin. Your unrelenting passion for soft toys. That you cried when you knew I'd been hurt beyond what I could take. Your unrelenting generosity. Your impeccably taste in music and films. That I could tell you anything and you'd always ask the right question, even when I didn't know what it was. That we walked around a shellshocked London after the tubes blew up on a mushroom comedown and it was like we'd found each other in our dreams; we were above it, and nothing could hurt us; we were immortals, the dead were nothing. That you squealed with pleasure when I picked you up off the ground. That you love birds. That you knew who was right for me when I didn't. That when you laughed it was always so unexpected and full-bodied that it made something inside me break open and fall in love each time. That we had adventures together and you always, always looked after me. That you're humble. That you never needed me to prove myself to you or show off. That you inspired me to my greatest words, greatest dreams, greatest depths and heights. That you made me feel like together we could do anything, rule the world.

Things I Have Not Loved About You.

You were too smart; you have too much time to spend thinking, too trapped in the moments of memory and worry, introverting yourself and losing sight of possibility and chance; that you seemed to need drugs to switch that off, or extreme moments to throw you into the present. That you lost hope, as if it was something idiotic to keep. That you seemed so intent on losing sensation and toughening yourself against the world that you couldn't enjoy it, sometimes. That to me you seemed to see strength in not caring or feeling, that always made me think you'd been hurt by something so badly that you didn't dare open yourself up to it again. That you would hurt your family so much even while caring about them so much; that you never considered how they would feel when they find out about the things you do. That you would never seem to listen when I thought you were doing something that would hurt you in the long run, even when I'd been right about things you'd done before, like with the film-maker. That you wanted to stay young forever, when you were always destined to be ten times the woman the girl had been. That you seemed to think nihilism and self-destruction and destroying the world could fix anything or make things right or somehow be cool; that you'd rather destroy everything than be proved wrong. That you never noticed when you started down a path to becoming a numb, deadfaced person, the sort you'd have spat words at before. That you would sometimes seem to accept anything for truth rather than - this is just how things are, and it can be good and it can be bad.

That you never seemed to realise just how much I love you.