The land has not changed.
Right on time I awoke as the train pulled
Into the station, then, slowly, shot into
The valley.
The land has not changed.
You can still see the safflower,
The buttercups dotted through the fields
That name it.
The land has not changed.
I can still remember being hip-high
In fields of broad beans, on my knees
At the altar.
The land has not changed.
The mountains still loom like the future
And the light finds the grass to say; this
Is God’s own country
The land has not changed.
The girl is still going through,
The commons, the country paths,
Breaking her bread.
The land has not changed.
I am leaving it now, faster than before
Racing past longtown,
the land has not changed
The land has not changed,
The land has not changed.
Apr 23
Apr 23, 2026 at 7:20 AM UTC
I would change my body.
I would change my fate.
In March I woke up like a child
Concussed on the playground,
I went wandering. I went wanting,
Groping at the wildflowers for signs,
Haruspice the seashells at my feet.
I would smile at strangers when they
Passed me in the dunes, or the forest,
I would walk for hours. I would wake
At night with angry hunger, If I ate,
I would walk.
Ten kilometres. Twenty.
Nothing passed between my lips.
I forgot how to pray, I forgot how to
Make anything but my changing body
A temple to the glory of existence. I
Would glare at others who would look
At my unfinished project. I would not
Laugh if it didn’t sound like birdsong,
I wouldn’t talk if you didn’t call
Out softly, somewhere in you,
To the old hills,
One-hundred Kilometres in Three Days.
I would look at the dark dividing line
In the middle of my thigh, where the sea
Met the sand and swallowed it slowly.
I would write that my ribs were my
Wings, coming out of a pupae, the
Uncovering of some divine heritage, my
Chartered purpose. I would stare at those
I loved but be dead in the voice. I would
Look longingly outside of me, at the bars,
Music in the city,
The hum of summer, the stars at night.
I would be proven wrong.
I would be human again.
I would be crying, and messy, and warm-skinned in the winter, I would be hungry, I would want for everything. I would bleed again and for that be happy, it would be red and raw and unpredictable. I would bleed again and I would open, silently, in the next spring, like the crocuses, I am showing them the insects and the pollen, the purple, the yellow,
I am letting them in.
Apr 2
Apr 2, 2026 at 4:11 PM UTC
Music in the world.
I feel you in my life like
The undercurrent of spring,
Forcing yourself through the dark
Earth, your love for everything.
The tow of the Atlantic.
Carry me like a lamb,
I will live on laughter,
Black eyes bleached by the sun ,
The warmth in my body at night,
Daffodils in the Meadows,
Children carrying sticks,
Your arms.
Mar 28
Mar 28, 2026 at 8:18 PM UTC
Call yourself a hedonist.
I do not give a ****
You are dark-eyed
And lonely,
Just like me.
Wandering like a doe in The Library,
Walk me through The Meadows,
Lie with each other again and in
Our mutual distance assure each other
What we both know to be true; the wall
The great plastic Man O War between us,
Us and the others, us and the grass,
The empty streets, you tear empathy
From me, me from strangers,
And the both of us lonely,
Foresaken, patiently awaiting
Our fate’s decree.
Call me tolerant,
I hate you like an animal.
Mar 28
Mar 28, 2026 at 1:52 PM UTC
I remember her
coiled up tight on the bed
swallowed down by the shadows,
the locked door,
or in the cabinet, waiting,
crying for forgiveness.
I remember how
she would come back home
and how all was wrongness,
words tumbling out,
whole fictions, whatever
could trap the feeling
I remember she knew
we were in peril.
Dreamt of men outside
her door, blocked it
with her dresser, starving,
stopping all time.
I remember her
Hunger at the end
of the day, the empty hands
the apology,
how she was easy to forget
When she was never seen.
Mar 2
Mar 2, 2026 at 7:55 PM UTC