let each leaf in the forest
be a love story that anybody can walk through when
they feel alone.

let each late night car ride
carry sonnets, starlit whispers and murmurs
in case it feels a little too much.

let each poem in this logbook
be able to reach into your longing heart and empty hands
for whenever you thought you weren't loved.

i am always one poem away from saying "i love you."

i am the worlds worst guest.
i will help you cook a meal
set the table
help place the plates
will eat everything in front of me
wash up and dry alongside you
even if you tell me not too
i am the worlds worst guest.

i will stay in your room
help clean the clutter
make it neat and tidy
as long as you are beside me
i can sit on the bed chair or floor
and i will never tire or bore
i am the worlds worst guest.

i have no sense of time
i can stay hours or days
until you've had enough
there's always another time
there's always other stuff
i need to be told to go
otherwise i will never know

That i am the worlds worst guest.

78 cards
to lay out before me.
i am not a superstitious person
but what other avenue is available?
to have something solid
to cling to
is better than free-falling.
tarot roots
please grow from me
and blossom into something
tangible.

it’s only i get a little scratchy across my shins at 1:33
forehead against work desk
leant down to run a track on my legs
phone untouched, shortcuts retraced
HTT ..PS//
ishouldntcheckyoursocials.      us.

couldn’t make me an addict of loss
which really is the untapped potential
for the future internet of things
safari, waystone.
safari, favourer of webpage rerunners,
safari, guide me back to a bookmarked
cliff-edge of ache.

cookies know me better than my housemate who’s sweetness blocked his accounts before something broke and we’d have to talk about it.

once the whiter lines appear on shinskin like my algorithm
I can sit back up
if not satiated at least appeased
the sound my lungs make isn’t really laughing or crying but
a wheeze.

I found between your fingertips the unknown.
The dark beauty that bleeds
otherworldly blood.
And as is with war torn lovers
mistaking red for green.
Left us both ruined
but you perhaps more so.

Is it Poetry
to find beauty at the bottom
of a notepad
is it just scribbles & scratches.

Is it Poetry
to glimpse those love lines at your mouth-
how they remind me
of your cracked lipstick smudges.

Is it Poetry
to get lost in the library
to catch a wisp or wave- of your
electrostatic love.

But What IS Poetry.
The cascading colours
swinging, singing and dancing from this monitor.
From you.
                                                        Hello. Poetry.

How're you today?

I've forgotten the words written
Upon your skin.
Did we write about the late nights the long days and leave the lustful leisure?
I've forgotten.
I've forgotten the smells slathered
Upon your skin.
Were they the sickly sweet apple blossom or cherry picked berries?
I've forgotten.
I've forgotten the taste.
Of Love bitten handholding and sneaky snaking fingers and thumbs
I've forgotten you.
And I wonder if
You've forgotten me.

probably.

We lasted 10 months
to the dot.
it seemed almost comical
how a relationship
could be so self contained.
i wondered-
looking at the freckle on the flat of your hand
whisky coloured on the smooth brown expanse—
if giving too much was really a problem I’d have to solve by myself.
the redlines we’d both crossed
reappeared in your eyes
i couldn’t understand where the stress the pressure summoned itself
begging to blow you up
but I could understand your hopelessness when you said you don’t want me to disappear.

it was only after that early morning walk to Starbucks together where
for fear of
wasting a weekend of sun
mourning
us
i debased myself
holding your hand, putting you piggyback  and running
like if i could make it to the finish line you’d give me a consolation prize and take me back.

watching videos in your halfway home
feeling your heartbeat
slow in my arms
believing it meant
this coldness was going to
melt away and
we’d rematch and be free

Until you spoke so casually
about the life you’d now get to live
unbound & free
the tautness of my heart
snapped me back to reality
cursing until my tears choked me.

i remember
packing myself away
you standing over me asking

“How are you feeling?”

like a taunt
with my fingers
grasping through the clothes
I brought to spend
in the sun
pushed to the back of
the suitcase
I stood and
unleashed all the truths
and half truths
and lies
unspooled
months
of love
in moments
to try to leave you
scarred and raw;

“you never loved me you never meant it really you want to be free you aren’t sick you don’t want to be my friend you don’t know what you want you were lying to me and now you wont even fight for me”

but you stood glacial -
and I realised it  -
was hopeless you had already moved on -
and all ive done was -
sentence myself to exile -

next to the flat
the neighbourhood
tabby swatting at
the drain.

sinewed fur-lined,
feline; finding
some poor animal
in a cage
outside its making.

i can’t see
below the earth.
the poor thing,
fighting.

the sun does no more
In your presence.
it is otherwise useless.
the heat of your lips
the warmth of your body
the rays from your eyes
that hold me tight.
Just
set fire to my skin.

let me burn in your sight.

the name I’m calling in the night
is the ghost of yours.
an apparition
wraith-like, transparent
against my lips.
whispered in the witching hour
alone in the dark,
to summon something
or you.

Just don't look at me like that.
Don't let it change the fact. Friends first-
and now always.

It's not funny how the words i wanted to say
dried up, with your eyes screaming.
"Stop it, there's no winning"

Why do we bottle it up in our mind? Ladies and Gentlemen.
Exhibit A: Rejection-painful, but not unkind.

remembering
the day after
a date in the grasslands
where our necks
ached on earthy blankets
and legs mottled by sweet kisses
delivered from flies.

my god the
jealousy
that they had known intimacy
of the softness in the calves i took to
sleep that afternoon we met
filled the short
but beautiful
sunset
with melancholy.

maybe here you found
i held codependency quite closely.

so
you took me to one of those superstores
that sell
beds.

                                   "i have a friend who's closing he always makes and double folds the quilt because it makes him feel like someone's mum."

you half shouted over
the motorway behind us- the demanding
yet
secondary conversation.

how
i wondered, did i end up here
                   - the boy i liked 6 months in -
laughing between
his downy hair and tap touchy fingers
now
so proudly leading the way
as his
friend, tired & mischievous
ushered us into the theatre
of infinite fractal bedspreads.

                                                 "hurry up so i can close to give you your privacy i'm going for a smoke."

spoken like any true
east London mum-
all ciggie ash
and true love.

i got to watch you work

which was flattering to say the least.
to stand beside
kings and queens
doubles and singles
being bent
dragged and persuaded
to your whimsy.
watching the curve of a bicep
seized up in delirious rearranging
                         - the muscles of the neck betray the youth of love-
until a masterpiece emerging
before us both
was realised.

                      "at least now we can cuddle without the bugs...or at the least these are bed ones?"

i remember
unwrapping the currently occupied smokers
carefully settled blankets like a first birthday
gift.
sliding under them,
with my shoes kicked away in eagerness.
your arms
not yet scarred with indecision
pull me closer till i forget to breathe....

this is it.
the mattresses connected sheets and sheets and sheets of feeling and this is it at once to cover and unravel against the texture of the cushions the springs the feathers locked away this is it like the words i whispered through the skin of the pillow your arm not so much pinned as smothered below the crook of my neck and this is it all there is is the smell of us in this beautiful moment that latches me to the frame in my mind against my back with the weight of the future this is it the pressing pressing pressing at the touch of our palms the touch of our lips the distances we'll learn to walk alone or together or side by side but not able to look at the path we tread perpendicular to our hearts this is it this is it this is it it it

....then i breathe.

the Moon is made more alive
by the waves
in ponds.

not unlike You.

whose beauty is held captive
momentarily
in every reflective surface,
whose fingerprints leave ichor
love letters
and a laugh like a forest fire.

i am bewitched. Lunacy.
yet it's a sad fate.

as it is impossible to attain
the Moon.

*Not unlike You.

i stood in my new flat today
counting the spins the fan
made in its centre.
an americanism, too out of body
for me to keep an eye on.
what now?
but to wait till the inertion sickness
crawls its way from the soles up to oesophagus.

tilt back till back flat against the black flat floor.
(i hated that sentence but it needed some air.)
wondering if i can melt beneath the new money wood,
can i stand upside down,
ankles halo’d in my space and my head in the neighbours.

the hallway to the bedroom where he sleeps a little more soundly
now i’m out the bed,
dares me to leave him alone.
“you’ve clawed this distance out” i murmur back.
“i can trace it in the skirting boards.”

sitting up i go to close the window
and lock it, unlock it and smile at the little piece of freedom
i can’t ever give back.

Why is it harder
to write in a mind-set
NOT befuddled by the bad things?

Why does my tongue
struggle to find the words
whenever the violent phrases and curses
are NOT escaping my throat?

Why does my pen
fail to slice open the paper and bleed,
whenever it is NOT under threat
of snapping between my fore-finger and thumb?

Why is it always harder
to say what i want too
without inexplicably
NOT BECOMING YOU.

I remember,
when i was younger- i used to think.
Love came as fast as it went,
so painless. So easy.

                                                 If i could visit that me
                                                 i'd break his legs,
                                                 then his heart.
Then he'll truly see
what a scar is.
                    

                                                        Walking down the street
                                                        still lacking a heartbeat.

when they talk of
the vacuum two lovers locked gazes make.
the removal of all else
except of the other and ones self.

where does everyone else go?
are they the victims of entropy,
the selfless souls who disappear
at the twitch of an eyelid?

for they are blessed and cursed
with a most wonderful scene;
Love,
       yet not meant for them.

Did you see the                                                                                          
balloons for your birthday?
I painted them
by hand, I knew you'd say
how cool, how nice, or
whatever. Man- they took forever.

How about your day out?
When we lazed and dazed the day away.
The night spent, ourselves sent a sway
over the sofa.
Your bed was too far,
and mine wouldn't miss me if it was
for a good cause.

This   was   better  than  a  good   cause

you wasn't ready
to
communicate what i really felt
you
were to much rawness
not enough
sharpness
just words thrown at paper in anger and sadness and a desire to finally get them out

i wasn't prepared to fix you up
because i'm in no position
to tell you how to be made right.

This is so foolish
but my heart still pounds
upon its walls when your
espresso shot smile cuts
through the crowd.

This is so stupid
but my stomach turns and spins
when your fingers and arms
somehow
brush against my skin.

This is so pathetic
when my hand reaches for yours
your flinches slice my hope
short.

This is so.... so..... so.....

SO INVIGORATING - REPLENISHING
so draining- depressing
SO WARM- INVITING
so brief- lightning

So, So
What?
My love's a clock
that's tic-tocking
away all till
i am
                                                gone.

the afters
scattered at ankle height.
bodies and turkeys and bottles
litter the 26th midday.
you’re still not here,
Saint Nick. Last year I drove you
to the north
but you said I couldn’t stay. duty called
& you wanted Christmas
with another loved one.

so I left my flat at midnight
with sweetness in my hands
raised;
to the sky watching
for a red light streaking unashamedly,
but the front of the doorstep
was not
darkened by a jolly frame.

the snow
withheld at cloud height.
maybe 8 billion people means
overtime.
maybe a no show means
it’s over time.
and writing a letter 9 hours after
you put the reins down
seems a bit desperate, don’t you think, Saint Nick?

the not days to new years
rupture at heart height.
the workshop’s shut, elves on annual leave. Loving like this means waiting
on an 11 month reprieve.
now the fireworks have started
Auld lang syne sung
but my arms hold the departed,
Saint Nick, perhaps is done.

so now im waiting
for another ** ** ***
and maybe
this one won’t love me enough
also.

i am better than no one
                                   no one is better than me.
i'll set the Earth on fire
then drown it.


in the sea....

I thought you'd wait.
Cause today till midnight,
I'll lay awake.
Dreaming up
downtrodden fantasies.
Causing the most baleful
to blush.

I thought you'd wait.
because last night
the fights that'd ring out
our happiness- were lost.
Our laughs and tears
-well my tears- were silent.
No more jeers,
jests and clown like style.

          Hell I'm gonna miss you for awhile.

Cause
i hear your loving voice.
see your soothing smile

but cause they're not for me
i feel like crying for awhile.

but alls okay i guess
as long as you're aware.
That somehow somewhere i'm dying
but you don't really care.

scar tissue
beating within my chest;
let you never know healing,
let you never know rest.

scar tissue
tapping to a one-two-one-two-time;
you know it'll never be right,
you know it'll never be fine.

scar tissue
that was once called a heart:
we can't stop the bleeding
we can't restart.

Even if i bleed a little;
at least I'll taste something we share.