Get me a boat
And let me discard my shoes and float soundlessly away from loneliness.
Amidst these dark waters I do not believe I can capsize -
Because I ride this endless sea in search of half-remembered blue eyes.
I fall in love all at once, and much much too quickly.
I patrol the beaches, heart heavy with glances from strangers in dark rooms and corridors.
Get me this boat, and god, let me leave quietly, as the red Margate sun comes up.
I want to search for someone else to love -
I want so desperately to love !
If I find beneath the sea another boat of strangers waiting for me
Then I shall be on New Land again.
Populated with glances on trains, soft greetings, beginningless romances -
Rushed smiles and other couple's dances.
I am lost, lost, lost to this sea...
The silent sea, creaking mass of serenity -
Oh god - If only I weren't so in love with humanity.

Do not forsake me the need to ascend.
We, in our platinum form
Do not require mothers, teachers, peers to remind us that one day the red soils will be left bereft of us.
We don’t require reminding.
Look down at yourself and consider your own outline.
We are shaped just so our eyes can compile us as human –
but not so that we require shaping still.
In the end, you can simplify.
Simplify yourself down. Until you are just circles, squares.
What is special about your own edge?
A human line, a form so easily replicated
It can be done by children in crayon.
A human line.
Allow yourself to ascend to your platinum form.

Down, into the water, girls face, first
In the grey depths
Astride. Legs
twisted in still
shoulder hunched over, still -
Words. Perfectly poised
to but a few chairs, at tables
Empty some, clung to the edges by a few
small girls - a few.
Who else to watch? Nothing else to do
Bored though. Writing notes still
Why not?
Women tell fables, tales and fables
Anecdotes of politics. As little as they're able
simplified for softer ears.

Shes beautiful. Quite. Well, she's not bad
sitting there, grey hair, clad
coat and perfume; sweet smelling politics.
Soft around the edges.
Don't stand up.
Quietly exit
Learn nothing.
Feel cold. Inside. Lost hope
Utopia slipping through manicured fingertips like soap.

Morning. Freshly breathing, wet lungs.
I catch a glimpse of you through frosted windows
Shoulders, hair, in profile. Wearing white.
Those hours - just before sunrise, half awake, lucid in the grey;
in those dreams you shy away from my touch,
and stare at me with tawny eyes.
I wish I knew what you were thinking
I wish I could stop checking you're still there.

I linger in our fragility. Knitted cotton hearts.
You're fresh blood in me, you glitter under my skin
Breaking apart in my eyesight  -
Yet I knit poetry out of your lingering fingertips.

I think myself a Venus. Standing glittering
mirror reflecting in peach pink
Opalescent in hip bones, soft thighs,
A love good and gold.
Self love. So pure!
Run my long fingers through cotton sheets
And soft hair
Reckless in my own body.
Comfortable here, thanks.

First light brings with it
an empty town to play in.
You, wild-eyed and messy haired
Mixed up words and inside jokes
Walk three steps ahead of me, and explain
How you've pulled the pockets from your jeans because you hate the thought of carrying anything with you.
Splintered grass between your fingertips
Makes me feel young again.
I run between trees with you
and we pull down branches to see
How far they bounce back.
It is hours before I realize I've dropped the act.

I don't desire to touch you
But when you laugh I feel the warmth
healing the black and blue bruises inside me.
Touch the afternoon sunlight
ravel it round your fingertips
and drag it down to your cheek.
You are entirely made of stars.