I do not love you like the ocean,

I’m much too scared of drowning.

Instead I love you like a battered paperback,

small enough to pocket

on walks from dorm rooms to lecture halls.

I love like the blanket my housemate bought me,

too pink to be polite

but a soft cucoon against my skin

warm on cold winter nights.

I love you like anything that can be forgotten

tucked away or to one side,

but hangs around in the quiet moments

still very much alive.

I do not love you like life itself,

but I love you a little like breath.

In the same way that I do not think about it,

in the same way that to not would be nonsense

in the same way that I don’t know how to stop

without the pressure in my chest building

to a point where I think I might shatter me pieces.

I suppose I love you a little like breathing.

I do not love you like the ocean though.

With you I have never been afraid of drowning.

It’s almost as if someone forgot to turn the radio off.

Not in this room

but the one across the hall or down the corridor,

a somewhere that can’t be found

no matter how many corners I check.

The distance turns voices to static,

punctured with partial comments

slipping between floorboard

like strings of mist on summer mornings.

Even if I press my ear to the wallpaper

I still can’t link the lines into one another.

The harder I try

the deeper the crackle in the speakers.

If I busy myself,

turn the dishwasher on,

boil the kettle,

fill the house with the rattle and clatter of things needing to be done,

I might just stand a chance.

A hiccup in the warble leaves a sentence

pressed against my ear,

burrowing its way through

to find the next line

in the dark of the grey matter inside.

All the while the radio continues playing

in a room I cannot find.

I found the pip between my teeth

an hour after the bitter bite

of garden currents

had faded from my tongue.



In the middle of a meeting,

too close between collegues

to spit or pick

the pith from my mouth.



Instead I chased it

from cheek to cheek

along the ring of my lower lip

to the hollow beside my molars.



The presenter lost his place,

tapped again at his laptop,

muttered a word ,

asked someone to call IT.



I swallowed by accident.

Choked,

drew a worried glance,

waved it away with a glass of water.



Outside the cleaner checked bins,

roll of bags at her hip,

quick, quiet between the desks,

she whisked any evidence away.

No one explained that best before

was subjective at best.

Instead they suggested

that you were lucky to find a man

willing to settle for spoiled produce

so close to the sell by date.



Did it occur to you

the rot might be them?

Watch for the cracks in the pavement,

Watch for the monsters waiting below.

At midnight they’ll rise from the darkness

and slip through the gaps in the stone.

So watch for the cracks in the pavement

And keep your sword close at hand.

Just because you’re no Prince Charming

Doesn’t mean an escape from this fairy-tale land.

Clouded by cobwebs

these days

you tell the same stories

and ask for news

forgotten by the next clock stroke.



You are no longer the apple peeler

whose hands never faltered

in wielding blade or teacup,

whichever was needed

to cater for me.



Though I bare your name

the syllables slip

and you must grasp

at faces I resemble

in the hope you’ll catch a memory

before it fades for good.



You were seventy-seven at my birth

and yet you stood

in photos with me,

constant in attention and love.



I do not know,

a world without.

The buzzards have fledged

swapping nests for summer winds

screaming on new wings.