I hope you found someone
to wander with you down the dark alleys
away from the bright lights, the happy music
that play out on the concourse.

Someone who asks about the stains on the wall
that leak through from behind the doors
you don't mention to guests.

Someone who's more interested in how it works
than how it looks.

I hope you've found someone
who'll help you find beauty
in all the bits
you seem too ashamed
to look at.

He said he liked her hair long:
messy and unruly against
upturned cheeks and winks.
Braided secrets running
between lilac
blooms and plaits.

He tasted of *** and berries
Short. Sweet. Sin.

He is a wisp of an
inferno eating
all the words playing

tip toe

on her bitten lips.

Winter came as a painter’s
brush dipped in blue and grey.

Secrets that taste of sleep
syrup and honey  f r o z e
Drunk bees dance in
pale and grey roses.

A careless mistake came
in bruises, a stain of
an indigo sunset.

Rusty kitchen scissors snip,
snip, snipped away all
the bad, sugary tartness
eating a toothache.

Spring crept up on a
bare nape and shoulders
Her sun-baked eyes burned,
softened like butter,
maple syrup and something
harder than life.