Freedom and loneliness
Sundown’s sickened sisters
Twilight’s troubled twins
Midnight’s melancholy muses
I can never tell them apart
And therein lies their beauty

With my hips I sign my name
Into your pleasure,
Deeply,
Slow.
I cast my spell into your breath
And watch you fall
Below.
You’re sinking into me whether you
Like it, or you
Don’t.
Admit your love, succumb to me
My love, don’t sink
Just float.

They say that women,
Search for love and choose the right one.
But men just take whoever is
In front of them when they’re ready.
So if I never leave,
If I’m always in front of you,
Maybe when you’re ready,
You’ll choose me.

Serenity won’t sit comfortably
Peace won’t be palatable
Calm isn’t comprehensible
Sleep never quite settles
Chaos is collaborative
Complication celebrates me
Sadness sits in my favourite chair
I am backwards but I am trying to turn

If I lure myself to a watery end
Does that make me the siren
Or the sailor
Am I another victim of the myth
Or am I mythical
The strong or sorry swimmer
If I fill my lungs with salt and foam
Will a song arise
Or a final fateful splutter
Sink or swim
Breathe or falter

Soft lyrics billow from the next room,
Wrapping their syllables around my body.  
Drenching my skin in warm, buttery tunes.
Floating behind the words on the page,
As I watch the stories unfurl from my book.
Sometimes I forget that I’m reading,
I can see everything as clearly as the island
From my beach on a still July morning.
My eyes stop seeing and my fingers
no longer turn the pages,
I am part of the tale.
Engulfed by the stark poetry of being alive.
A passive, invisible witness to the lives of the characters,
As they run across my mind and live onwards in my imagination.

Silence like treacle
Dripping on my ear drums
Drumming sweet beats that
Match my slowing breath
Thicker than blood and
More rancid than bile
Sitting on my forehead
And telling me to sleep
Someone say a word in this
Congealing quiet night
Make shapes with your mouth
And speak directly to my soul