The moon was a fist,
the fog a loose linen sleeve,
the night a dark muscle,
the street a clean, wet bone.
She arrived messy, damp,
fawn-eyed in my new nest
on Thomas Circle, hastily
cleaned. Streetlights swept
the ceilings, spotted handfuls
of one-off constellations,
a crooked new zodiac, laughter
pulling us to an aluminum bed.
But the moon was a fist
pounding through the fog,
backed by hairy-starred night,
breaking tomorrow's bones -
this second tryst was the last.
I couldn't bring myself to be
both her lover and nurse,
my mind sagging, anesthetized
by my cancerous mother
undying in crawling spirals.
It was a mistake - it is so hard
to find someone who searches
inside you for the things
you are, the reasons you are,
what you might yet be. But,
after all: the moon is a fist.
19h ago
Jun 2, 2026 at 11:53 PM UTC
(TW - ****** coercion)
Last night a warning slid clear of gentle grey clouds.
This morning the verdict is torrential. Rain sheets and wraps roads - drain-to-drain, kerb-to-kerb.
You’re driving out in that.
I love you.
The layering of years. Kind deeds. Coffee left by the bedside, tea left by the tub. The look in your eyes when the blue screen went up, shielding me from the birth of our first child. Returning with you to our tiny flat. Staring, enthralled by our boy.
(your hands found me too soon, too sore. i wanted to but couldn’t - 'no' was rubbed raw to 'yes' - i didn’t want to but did. i came and it hurt and we kissed)
Loving texts and treats - my first day back. Your smile, telling me I looked well hot in a suit. Christmas with our families, all together. Ridiculous, huge Snoopy pyjamas, not the La Senza lingerie I wanted. You, too shy to ask about sizing.
(i was tired and bled painfully. you were restless, hard. i needed to sleep. i eventually agreed - said you could come over my belly and thighs. i cried in our bathroom)
Languid summer days in France with your parents and our boy. Their first grandchild. Cuddles at sunset. Raid plug-ins instead of pretty pink lamps. Cheap wine, green olives. Tomatoes ripe from the vine. Bread torn, dogs begging for crumbs under the table.
(the house was busy. you fingered me when i was hanging out laundry. our bed creaked and i wanted you as a secret, so we made love in a soft duvet nest on our floor)
I love you.
Your fear when labour progressed crazy-fast; your confusion when I asked for a Burger King meal on our way to the hospital. Palpable relief when there was no blue screen, no transfusion. Holding hands. Grinning at our boy’s beautiful reaction to meeting his sister.
*(i ****** you, spiralled. you cupped my head in your hands. i freed myself twice. explained again. you didn’t listen. my mouth filled and fulfilled its purpose. i’d gone)*
I have a clay jug, indigo with mermaids swimming around its swell. When I was small, I wanted to be a mermaid. I practised holding my breath. I wanted a salt-ocean woven about me, wanted to fly through jade tides, wash-up on white sands. Learn to walk over-again some place new. I imagined being able to move and twirl and swim vast distances without needing air. I imagined raking my fingers along all the world’s seabeds, touching rough volcanic rock and glossy-smooth ice *(hands are full of magic. when *** is a possibility, when hands flicker and play and they know why i’m watching, sound stops working. sometimes everything is silent, other-times everything is trapped in a bubble and i exist, wholly and achingly, outside of it. i feel like a mermaid then. hands are full of power. when they move in ways that scare me, i turn off. a lamp in a bright room, you’d hardly notice).* The jug broke clean just above its swell and below its spout, all the way around. For a year it was in two pieces. You glued it for me. It’s okay now, but I don't pour water above the break. In February I fill it with sunny yellow daffodils.
I love you.
All the blood - there’d never been so much. You, curled on our bed talking to the operator. Me, pulling the dog to the kitchen. Rounding up prescriptions, clothes, previous ECGs. Praying to see waves of blue-light flood our walls.
Maybe they can stop whatever makes you bleed. Fix your heart enough so that another team can tinker with your spine. Your aunt had the same surgery. It stopped the crushing of nerves in her neck. She can’t use her legs now and it damaged her vocal chords.
Last night a warning slid clear of gentle grey clouds.
This morning the verdict is torrential. Rain sheets and wraps roads - drain-to-drain, kerb-to-kerb.
You’re driving out in that.
I love you.
1d ago
Jun 2, 2026 at 7:17 AM UTC
It is going to be one of those days…
I think, dull-head deep.
Another shot of coffee,
Another sweet?!
In the past, I have wanted “insight” injected into my sight,
Now, I want adrenaline neat!
2d ago
Jun 1, 2026 at 3:30 PM UTC
Walking with my fingertips
along your beaten spine
each vertebrae reveals a story
long since lost in time
Oh, how you laughed as a child
playing hide and seek 'til dusk
the way your rosy cheeks lit up
like flowers ripe to pluck
The bairns you bore, the one that died
forever loved eternally
held in your heart and in your breath
as waves upon the sea
Walking with my fingertips
we are together after all this time
words I speak do not do you justice
so I have sprinkled them in this rhyme
2d ago
May 31, 2026 at 10:36 PM UTC
No, I didn’t eat enough protein today---
the eggs sat shy in their carton,
the chicken stayed frozen in its silver coat.
My body, I know, is a frugal accountant,
noting each deficit with a quiet reproach.
But I did think of you
with enough intensity
to generate new muscle tissue
in my heart.
I picture the fibers braiding themselves in the dark,
a quiet cardiac lace being knitted
from the sheer tensile patience
of missing your face.
The ventricles, learning to flex
around the shape of your name,
a new kind of hypertrophy,
a sweet, sustainable strain.
Forget the quinoa, the measured scoop of powder,
the careful arithmetic of repair.
Today, my heart got stronger
by the sheer weight of your ghost
sitting gently in its chair.
So if you feel a deeper thump against my ribs tonight,
don’t be alarmed.
It’s just the fresh, involuntary muscle
I grew from the warm-up sets
of thinking of you.
4d ago
May 30, 2026 at 3:01 AM UTC
By the end, I couldn't even speak
to my first wife except by text,
even if we sat in the same room
quietly offering dinner to the TV.
Evening flooded the corners
of my heart, I existed only
as an outline of a man, obsessed
with movies that spoke for me.
Liquor helped grease the blood
through the veins, fueled
the celluloid cycle of reinvention -
I was Scottie in Vertigo filling out
a neon-framed silhouette, I was
Frank Booth huffing ether, I was
Charles Foster Kane, dreaming
of the lost snowglobe parents -
I was twenty seven as it broke
apart, and my oldest friend's
younger sister's closest companion
was seventeen, a sweet singer.
At parties she and her friends
would mock us from the fringe
of fiery halo, would skirt the night
kitchen and giggle as we fought
with beastly fists and country
laughter. It was music that pulled
us together; back then I was
still untouchable on six strings,
she was claiming her voice
for the first time. I strummed,
she crooned to backdrop lushes,
but we didn't care. That was
the end of it: a handful of songs
across a handful of parties.
She moved away, married,
became famous. My ex and I
fled in opposite directions,
I became a marathon runner
who could never run far or fast
enough to get away from myself.
I saw the singer on TV not long ago,
& thought of forsaken evenings
in the pine salon when she would
squeeze my fingers for a moment
after we serenaded the beery eyes.
Thank god she'll never know
I was claimed by wild wet shadows,
ghosts in glad glass; prisons, poems.
4d ago
May 30, 2026 at 1:20 AM UTC
He thumbs a spark, his other hand cups loosely to protect it. I feel across my shoulders, through my hair - a sudden salt-breeze lick away the flame. The cigarette rests now, in the fractured gun of two fingers. Everything is quiet. I think that maybe I’m a little bit broken.
I’m burning hot-pink. Watching an ice-lolly melt, drip, spill down his knuckles, over his palm. He draws my gaze to his face. He’s smiling, speaking, reassuring. It takes a moment for his words to crash through my silent waves - It's not about cigarettes or me smoking. You like hands.
Smiling, laughing, whispering. I can't hear. I can feel his knuckles pressed gently against bare skin. Taste lime on my tongue. See his other hand - cat-like, captivating. Deliberately tracing circles with his thumb - around and around an imperfection in a discarded pint-glass.
His mum asked about yesterday. He's said about heat, queued traffic. I’m describing sweet feta salad and cocktails. An inquisitive glance. I realise - I’m holding only one finger; my thumb spirals in his palm. Of course he’s already clocked it. Grinning like a Cheshire cat.
4d ago
May 29, 2026 at 8:09 PM UTC
He thumbs a spark, his other hand cups loosely to protect it. I feel across my shoulders, through my hair - a sudden salt-breeze lick away the flame. The cigarette rests now, in the fractured gun of two fingers. Everything is quiet. I think that maybe I’m a little bit broken.
5d ago
May 29, 2026 at 2:18 PM UTC