I don’t trust people anymore.
I just dont have time for all of that;
faking myself, my reactions, my real thoughts
just to make it easy for someone
who wouldn’t reciprocate my actions

I just can’t trust people now.
they’ve done so much to hurt me
bring me down, see anything but happiness on my face

I don’t allow myself to trust people anymore.
because they think that promising you
that they love you and they’ve known you for so long
is enough to stitch and cover up their words,
hidden glances and watchful eyes

Thats why I don’t trust people anymore.
because they strike you at your weakest
like a snake hiding through the grass
until theyre close enough
to hit you where it hurts most


Thats why I’ve had enough
of trusting people.


-z

High on the O2:
Red Rossopomodoro, Wagamama,
and on the bus shelter, Marc Jacobs,
and again higher,
Habitat,
then Metroline moves past.
It's the 113
to Oxford Circus,
and the 13 to Victoria:
Thrilla Lives On,
shouts the slogan,
while National Express has
All Set For Take-Off.

They're gone...
It calms
empties,
nothing much
just the red lidless eyes
of cars
two, three, four dozen pairs
hover
over the asphalt road.

Where...
where am I?
Ahhh, yeah,
in the Oriental Star,
the road seen from a table and stool,
waiting
for food.
Where have I hailed from?
My lover's womb.  
No, no
NOT THAT!
The North Star, yes:
A pub on the Finchley Road,
Where Tottenham beat Liverpool 4-1
A pyrrhic victory!
Over a couple of beers.

Warm years, and tears.
A sense of place,
a home, a nest,
Receding in the traffic
Of a busy road,
Waiting on noodles.

There are men
with loud voices

I've been taught
to fear since birth.

If the intermittence
of skin flashing between
two articles of clothing is
where seduction occurs

then where is the
****** gaping cloth
of a yell?

Is it in the cavernous tongueless space
of parted lips: in some silent inky
strident echoing taste
or
in the tightness of vocal
chords pulled taut, the strain of
raised forehead and neck veins?

There's a weight in
my chest like a weight
in his bed, heavy and
unsatisfied and
thinly veiled.

I think somehow
the look on my face
must be a pleasing design:

a familiar retraceable
state: a reminder that
I don't mind him,

I know my place:
in a small, quiet space,
in his arms when its late,
on the drip of the spit on the tip of
his tongue: a flash of flesh over pale teeth:
a site of intermittence: in a hesitation

a fearful hesitation