It is ironic, Salvador, because
I am afraid of many things in the world and when I am with you I feel safe,
Yet your company is the one thing I am afraid of most.
I know that I love and need you more than you will ever love and need me and that
One day you will be free
With another woman and I will be
Left paying for my sins against God and
My rights against the state.

I thought that our love would have no limits;
You said that I am a Christian storm but
I know that you can brave this tempest and
Save me from myself.

I am a poet, Salvador, but
Whenever I sit down to try to write a poem about you,
Or even just how I feel about you,
I am unable to because
I am lost for words.
I can no longer express myself.  

I remember the beach.
We would lie there for hours
And on its sand we would kiss not just with our lips but
With our eyes.
The water will miss our visits,
Its body seldom taken by another-
As opposed to being constantly engulfed by two artistic lovers.
I have received my seaside medicine
-Via touch of tongue
And word of hand-
But have come to the realisation that you have in fact
Poisoned me.
I shall never be cured now.

The smoke from silent guns has already risen but
I am severed from the call to a fight with myself;
A conflict to choose between God
and you,
Despite the fact that you are the same.
You distract me from every focus-
Even though we are miles apart;
Even though you have replaced my words with your art,
You have broken me, yet
You make me
Whole.

Where is your warmth now, Salvador?
I am alone by the sea trembling with the cold
That you swore I would never feel again.
The winter will devour me as a result of your failing to relight the fire that is supposed to
Ignite me.
You promised me life with a portrait machine
But in all honesty
What I really want to be
Promised with is your faith,
In me.

I'm frequently told to
'Stop and smell the roses'-
I have hay fever.
If I were to stop, I would no longer be moving so
My mind has more time to fill itself up with the little thoughts,
The ones I'm walking the streets to forget.
Rose is one of my favourite scents but
Every time I try to take it in
My cheeks swell and my eyes water;
I'll just stick to being a walker.

I wasn't aware of this, but
The nose must play an important role
In the improvement of mental health because
I am also told to
'Wake up and smell the coffee'-
I don't want to wake up
And I can't get out of bed,
(Could you just bring me a coffee, instead?)
It might inspire me.

Within the cover of night I am sitting;
Lying;
Crying
-Doing anything other than sleeping-
In bed thinking about what if somebody told me to
'Wake up and smell the roses',
****
Myself?
Surely it's a death sentence
To do a combination of the two
That I have already explained
I cannot,
Will not
Do?

Today, however, I did attempt to smell those roses
And I bought myself a latte, too.
But all I could taste and smell was ash,
Which made me panic
Because it felt like I was burning alive and
I liked that.
Now I understand that cigarette smoke can sometimes be so potent, that it
Drowns the soul.

Tobacco is, in fact, a substance of which I feel I can relate to:
It's grown;
Briefly nurtured;
Removed;
Dried;
Packaged;
Labelled (with a warning);
Used by many and
Lastly,
Set alight by a temporary flame;
Used up in a puff of smoke.

I was travelling along a busy road-
Eyes opened and closed.
I had music in my ears so loud that
I could hear the sound of
Ringing with every note.
Way out of the window,
I raced the ****** train to Scotland
Up a dual carriageway and felt rapid
Time dispel all notions of
Going nowhere in life.

Without warning my world was jolted and
Came to a stand still.
We were in motion but
I was trapped and uncomfortable as
I remembered that yesterday,
In your thoughtful, rash way,
You texted me from a tent in Leeds
Telling me that
It was over.

Grass looked so much greener on the other side
Of the glass, yet I was
Unable to let go of the past.
I thought to myself  
'This is not how I planned my life would turn out'
At least, not today.
It hit me that I can
Never plan to be happy because
On the days I plan to be happy I will
Think of this moment and
Be sad.

Earth seems out of tune as
I lose the race through thoughts of you and
Begin to
Hate my favourite songs;
I love you.

I should have known better.
I can't decide whether to
Live my life and jump onto the train ahead or to
Jump in front of it.
I'm sorry I wasn't enough and
I could never be
No matter how hard
I tried.

I'm in a traffic jam now.
I watch the sun become eclipsed by the clouds and
I wish you were
Here.

Outside of the library,
On a wet, wet day,
You smiled and said
'I love you'
Before walking away
Towards the platform, where you depart,
And I know that I will always feel this way
About you.

You run your fingers through my hair and with them bring
The cool, fresh air that
I have longed for, all throughout the
Winter.

The green flecks and
The blue hues of your eyes
Connect you to this current season:
Springtime.
Through your warmth and light,
You have given me
New life.

I have been told that said eyes are the window to the soul, so
When we kiss we must never keep our eyes closed;
An exchange of hearts for an exchange of souls that will continue, and
Never grow old.

Pastel blue sky longing to
Hang over wheat;
There is only grass.
Green.
Green with envy at white clouds as
They pass.

                  (A different journey)

Poplars strive to touch
Shrunken, grey clouds that
Recoil at the very sight.
Ah, the plight of an
Innocent gesture.

               (Nowhere else to go)

Wind snears:
My train moves it so.
Grass is merely in the past
As I am slung
To and fro.

                          *

The seat next to me is empty. A passenger of invisibility kindly agrees for my bag to rest on their featherlight lap. Reservations elsewhere have been made.
Durham can wait.

                            *

In my lecture, there were four empty seats next to me. All other rows were full.

                            *

Last Monday, I got ****** at Stone Roses Bar. Stumbled along to ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.’
Hands were all over me:
Creeping and
Touching.

                     Why is it that when
I want company, it flees?

When I embrace
                            Loneliness,

             It molests me.

The only warmth I get is in a cup of tea-
Sometimes coffee if I'm particularly flat-
For the neglect and thirst makes me
Cold.
I'm a ******
-By choice-
Who wishes to sell herself to men and women
Not for money
But for physical contact and some kind of
Love
No matter how devaluating.

A mug of camomile tea is best accompanied
By the gloam of a late summer's day and
The distant bleats of young sheep,
I find. Peace lies between
Two silhouetted trees, black
Against a blueish sky.

I could hear the echo of a ****** closing in, but from which direction
I could not for the life of me tell.
The caws and cries soothed my soul
And my eyes were closed,
So that I could immerse myself in a Yorkshire breeze
That gently brushed itself past the timeless trees.

With my wake came the crows
-Of which restored my sanity-
And each wingbeat brought yet another colour to the dusky sky,
As if time were something that could be carried.
A magpie,
A reminder of home,
Perched itself upon a fallen post and rattled furiously at how temporarily tranquil
I had become.

Then a charming mist made its way across the valley
But this only enhanced the clarity of my current surroundings.
The clouds in front of me began to wisp and merge like cigarette smoke against an ever-dimming lightbulb-
That reminds me,
I still need to get that fixed.

I noticed that my neighbours were cows,
Which I saw as a treat and a rarity,
Not in any way as a delicacy to be consumed and exploited for the good of humankind-
I digress.
Not the cows that I see everyday at, say, sixth form or in
Human form.
No, the cows that I usually see in packs
On supermarket shelves;
On butchers' racks
Before the people that behold them with hungry, selfish eyes.

As I gazed in this melancholy daze I knew that I would begin to miss the sight of those unsuspecting beasts from the minute I got back to where I was from-
To where I was born to live,
Unlike those in the fields that are
Born to die.
So then I swore to myself that I would never again
Look outside.

Daisy.
A little flower with white petals that sometimes turn pink.
An orange centre that withstands the constant extraction of those petals, with the pang and echo of tiny voices shouting
“He loves me; he loves me not”-
Often mistaken for a ****.

Daisy.
A girl who winces with insecurity
Every time the nearest dandelion clock is
Plucked from the soiled earth around her.
She watches with wet, reddened eyes as she is paralysed
(If being limbless can equate to such a feeling)
And unable to stop the careless children blow away Time as if it were some sort of lark-
Seed by seed.

Daisy.
A witness to the exposure of stalks and leaves alike;
A veteran of the unwanted embrace and, indeed,
The wanton thieving of petals and memories and silence and voice
Combined.
She is swaying but explicitly not
Bending to the wind.
She stands her ground, and
She has blossomed.

Whenever I look at the clouds, a bird always flies by.
Always.
Straight through my field of vision.
Straight through the grey;
The blue.
The thickness of mist and fog- not even that could
Deter it.
It knows that behind the smothering doubt of direction lies
              Always
A fiery sunset.
Emblazoned on its wing,
Hope.

My eyes have been rubbed within an inch of their life;
I have forced myself to live within an inch of my life.
My body writhes in the bedsheets that I know I should leave but
I really don't want to because it's warm in here and
The world is cold.

Sounds of a generator and somebody
Shouting nearby. Reflections of
Blurred lights and a
Window playing television through blind slits;
This is it, this is it and
I shall embrace it.

Sewage surges below me and above me
Orion persists.
Should I take this as my glimmer of hope? Something
Of a trope belonging to my tragedy?
I shall embrace it.

Sitting in a cafe now, spilling
Tea on books and recalling my
Favourite of pages bound.
A mother sings a lullaby to unpacified baby, bittersweet
Melody of soft cries and
Soothing voice rattle against
Cutlery.
Life’s ultimatum sits opposite.
I shall embrace it.

The sky meets the sea in the middle, I am told,
Yet does not greet it, for it is grey and old.
One day, however, I did see with such zeal
The two embrace the lonely pier
With warm blue smiles
That took my breath away.
And still I walked across the sands of Time
And still the sea crept closer,
And when the Tide took hold of me
I did not try to hide from it;
Two smiles only became brighter.
I said 'Farewell' to a somewhat sweeter sea and
Scoured the beach for Treasure:
I found an Open Book among the beach jewels and the Pleasure.

Why do my eyes waver in salt water?
It's just a concept I don't really understand when
The ocean in my mind is dry but
My eyes? So wet.
And yet, fire roars through an ***** named Passion - and the sand beneath my feet burns their soles and tries to
Penetrate my soul
But I have buckets,
Tucked under two lids,
That can spill with or without my will.
They can put out a flame, both good and bad. A blessing and a curse.
I'm told that fish can't climb trees but I have neither arms nor gills you see
I have been immobilised,
And it's down to a monochrome smear on a canvas with so much potential;
A plethora of 'dos' and 'don'ts';
The slaughter of a lamb.
I would like to stand in solidarity with each martyr of idiosyncrasy.
I wonder if anything we ever do will be enough.

It would be me to drag you onto the dance floor not knowing how to actually dance-
Resorting to kissing instead.
Things work differently in my head and you are living proof that
They always work out in the end
(More or less.)

You are my dream but like none I have ever had before,
Or indeed could ever dream of having;
You are incredible and make me
Unbelievably happy.

There is just something about you.
And by something I mean everything but
'Something' is one of your favourite songs so I thought I had better put that in for the sentiment.
I am nowhere near as clever as you and
I am trying to keep up:
One poem at a time.

Are we underneath a diamond sky
Or simply in the sky with diamonds?
No matter.
     (Stuff like that does not matter.)
It is a beautiful notion, but unbearably quaint,
Just like the idea of making Love wait.

If your sweetness could be poured into a glass,
I would drink every last drop of it and be rid of
This bitter taste in my mouth- the very same that
Taints the buds of youth to misconstrue my perception of:
'What is hazard and
What is beauty?'

Each thought of you releases a butterfly from its golden cocoon and
Every time one lands on my skin, I invite it to drink nectar deep from within.
In other words:
I no longer reach for the leeches as soon as I wake up- I no longer feel the need to bleed-
Because I have been sleeping on a bed of daisies ever since we met and,
Even as I continue to fall,
It does not hurt.
You are my dream.

When lost in thoughts of you and I,
The men on deck say 'that ship has sailed'
But the destination is never specified
And I am not told if, on board, we failed.

-There is no use in saying 'we' or 'you'
The land keeps her by fetter
Yet she, captive, retains that cheerful hue
As if, without me, her life were better-

Her eyes were beach jewels that glistened and her gaze enthralled me- on the day before I left.
I saw her tame the wild white horses with a smile,
But that amazement, I am now bereft;
I did not know the sea would part us this long while.

I fear that, although the ship sails light,
My sickened dark, heavy heart
Will make it sink throughout some night,
And then, if it were possible, her and I would be further apart.

The ocean is vast, enigmatic, deep,
But ten times less so than Love;
I am, it seems, firmly in Brizo's keep,
Yet in my dreams I am free to see my Dove.

I am weary, and have lost sight of that 'ever-fixed mark'-
The one monument to be our guide-
I cannot see anything in the dark,
But in the whispers I hear, I can confide.

Not even the constant hiss and roar can drown out the Siren Song
That tempts to pull me under,
My thoughts will fight against the throng
And shake the sea like thunder.

She wanted to take him to see a
Work of art that was much too large
To fit inside of a gallery;
The view from a green bridge,
The river down below.
He was afraid of heights and would not look down, but
They walked hand in hand and his warm pulse helped her understand
That the way to frame such a masterpiece, was to
Make it into a memory.
And even though they walk this bridge many a time together,
This particular drizzly sort of night springs to mind, as  
It was then she realised that the orange sky,
Reflected upon stained glass windows,
Pleased the eye.

And so she remembers how the grease in the spattering rain and the filth in the glowing waters
Were eclipsed by the light of her Love.

He had in his possession a smile of which he gave to her with great passion, and with this
She forgot about City Disparity- in her fashion.

With dewy lashes, bold in youth, did he
Paint stars across a purple, ashen sky-
The same that never fade in memory-
And so she remembers
The oils they extracted from the river,
Below the heights they were reaching,
And how they let linger Euphoria in mixing and pressing,
So that this feeling could last
Forever.

Getting lost in your eyes is, I am sure,
Much like being rescued from Tempest waters
With the Blue Moon dappled on my back.

What you see wonders with, I often find myself drowning in
But I never suffocate, no,
And I never die;
I just lose my breathe for a moment
Before you bring me to life.

I would very much like to meet the Sirens in your mind and appease each she through acquaintance;
I will jump in at the deep end with no questions asked-
Alas, I am not worthy to drink nor feel
The Aqua of your embrace,
Instead I cloud my face
And speak the lines that Prufrock spake:
'I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.'

I am undeserving of the swim within your sweet, salt water,
It would seem.

Girl, with tousled hair, sleeps but swiftly turns the stair of her dreams;
Returns to reality.

Girl, with tangled thoughts, lets the room spin until she can piece it together like a puzzle-
She drinks ***** like a butterfly would nectar-
Starts with the corners, takes her time.

Girl, with tepid headache, sits up and observes a washed-out lunar denim blue clean her baby pink wall;
Snow fall.

Gale looked outward.
Stared dead at the tyrant approaching.
The wind did not chill her;
She chilled the wind.
Haunted it.

Whenever it blew you could be sure
She’d be there, standing against it:

Standing like a poplar-
No, taller-
Drinking wine in the embers,
A tree that fought the enemy.

Cries carried on a breeze,
Watching the world
As it falls to its knees
Because Gale won’t be
Felled.

She’s a force to be reckoned with.

I have never before been to Italy
But I go there in my mind;
Calling all the local men by your name
And observing no rapid tide.

I drink tea that gets not cold
But ever warmed by the arancia sun-
That soothes my paleness,
And makes me one.

And if I should ever die in this cornucopia of colour,
It would not be as I had hoped;
For Italy was a country to find together,
Not where I, alone, should *****.

Running and laughing as the sun went down,
She looked like a free spirit.
She thought she was, too,
But her green screen walls malfunctioned all of a sudden;
It was pitch-black with no sound
And the floor was made of dandelion clocks
That disappeared as
Time ran out.

Soon she lay down,
Embedded in the earth,
And looked up to find Ursa Major hanging by a string.
She waved at the puppeteer and smiled but when he left to wash his hands,
She frowned.
When she was younger,
The names of constellations led her to believe that all of the bears behind bars
Were born from the sky.
Naivety was prevalent in that young, fuzzy mind,
But now she knew that it was all a lie.

I emerge from the forest and an inevitable sense of insignificance overwhelms me.
The stars blow my mind,
They live without my time.
What we see is already dead and some of that legacy lives on within my being,
Yet I will never be regarded as special or as beautiful as them;
They are the uncontrollable apple of your eye.

Why don't they need our love, those stars?
Part of me thinks they just don't want it.
How can they possibly live without the warmth of society's recumbent limbs?
(For even when all humans unite, are we weak)

Maybe they have dissociated themselves from us.

All we do is dim them down
With our light pollution and our ****** rows,
To the point where some aren't even visible within the sky-
Or within the likes of you and I.

We gaze at the stars
-We look at them in adoration-
But they will never do the same.

We are but nothing like them.

The wind outside mimicked her wails and cries and
Sent a tremor from the top of her
Spine down to her
Thighs.

The branch beating on her window coincided with the plucking of her
Delicate and deathly heartstrings.
Alarm bells ring in the
Back of her
Mind.

Music took form in a symphony of sadness that a broken voice would
***** on repeat
As she slowly
Died.

Nights like this always make me realise that
I'm actually alive, that
I'm a living person and
One day I'll become ash,
Or the nutrients needed to grow a tree and
No one will remember me.

Seeing the sky crash with the waves upon human dearth,
The wings of gulls that carry time and
Meander and glide their way through
Storms of sand,
Makes me feel utterly petrified yet free- and
No one will remember me.

Twisting the cap off that first beer;
Always the best but made so much better by
Sounds of Purple Rain,
And those you hold most dear
Talking about
Music and food and
Times in their youth.
The crickets cheer as we
Reminisce in the 'here
And now'-
Relaxed smiles
Clear the skies as
Night falls, whilst
Stars appear;
Lightly dappled on the ground.