When tenderness became a thing
That left with you, well, I've regained
It - there are men, who care, and show
It, too. Kissing on main market streets
Is a thing. This wasn't supposed to be
Revenge. It wasn't. I asked my friend,
And he said yes. Well, he kissed me,
Like a man. He took what he wanted.
He took joy from seeing mine, and I was
A woman again, and your rejection faded,
And men were men, and women were women,
And all was right in the world. Save that I
Messed up my knee and should have told
My family where I was, why I'd got stuck
After the work-do. I was supposed to have
Helped and all. I have a love already - it is
With those waiting at home, not waiting
To be found on a street corner, cold and
Desperate, like a Frank Sinatra song, sung
Nervously by a girl who wishes she were more stupid.

But, (you whose name dare not cross my lips),
It wasn't so sad. My colleague was gratified -
What do you know of a ten year love story
Falling apart? You, who built me a lifetime
In two weeks. Were I better at talking. Could I
Figure you any more than he could figure her.
Do you know what desire tastes like, your own?
Do you remember mine. Did it feel alien on
Your tongue. Did I feel like "No, this is nothing
Of mine, this is not mine, not this." I wonder.
What do I know about love? I know about seeing
The hurt in someone else, and kissing that.
I know how to care for wounds, and I know
How to rip them open, too. Last night might
Have been the first time I didn't want revenge
On every deep cut men have grafted in my bones.
Someone cared (and people cared at home, too).
Someone wanted me (at home I was wanted, too).
I wanted to cast light onto a shadow in his mind
And found my own darkness again, like you will,
Perhaps, the next girl you take a chance on,
When you need a reminder you still have the touch,
Or when you fall, like a boy. I reach out and I
Find my own wounds, and yours, in the night.
I reach for you, and I find you barred. You
Swallowed the key and the lock, and I don't -
Can't - want to reach into your chest to pick
The lock with my bloodied fingers. Benya,
(Oh I dare), I'd gnash flesh to bone for you
And break that to the marrow, but your name
Would be "Love", and I am not that stupid.

walk the rooms in horror,
see genius in corners,
there.

realise that he may cry
all the tears of life.

The sun
A bullet hole
Burning through
The grey-white sky
Waiting on a train
At a crossing
Traffic standing still
Graffiti strewn as boxcar pass
Artful dodgers creating
On steel canvas'
Leaving their unsung scars
Smokey music fills my head
One of those moments
In my memory scrapbook
Thoughts of one who
Used to make me know
All is good with the world

Your tongue,
a blade that remembers
where I am softest,
where the scar tissue is thinnest.
You wield it without hesitation.

You ask for acceptance
as if I owe it
to the thing that has hollowed me out,
made me flinch at shadows,
left me raw and singing
with wounds I did not choose.

Sorrow has blackened the horizon.
The future—
a thing I used to believe in—
is now a quiet ache
that hums under my skin.

I flinch at your sarcasm.
It’s a whip,
a steady rhythm of harm
I cannot outrun.

And the problem you refuse to see—
it is breathing.
It is alive.
It soars above me like a black kite,
leaving me marked in ways
I can never explain.

I search for home
as though it’s a place that exists,
a place that will hold me
without splintering.

But you—
you crown yourself in their love
while their laughter
cuts you from behind.
Every sacrifice I make
is a ghost.

You hand them my offerings,
giving them weight they do not deserve.
And here I stand,
naked of hope,
bare of safety,
still whispering your name
like a prayer
to a god who doesn’t answer.

The tower penetrates
the puffy pink
clouds, and the
horizon squirts
sweet rain.
My face gets
sticky.
She is the sky.