Deceivingly simple, we sit down
On our ****** plastic step stools
After school in the kitchen.
You ask me how my day was. I say
Fine thanks, learned about quadratics.
I ask you where you went cycling. You say
Oh, you know, the usual. Round out
That way, and back. The usual.
We sit in silence for amount as I cut a slice of apple and hold it out to you across the room.
You take it, and we sit on our ****** plastic step stools
In the kitchen after school,
Sharing silence and an apple.
And I almost love the crisp, cool crunch
As much as I love you.

I want impossible things.
I just want to make you believe.
But I’m hardly even here.
And day will always break.
And pay checks don’t make themselves.
And I hate how much I love people
That humble my tiny fears.
I’ve rattled the gates at the top of your driveway in the cold of night,
Waiting for you to open,
Too many times.
I say I get taller by breaking down,
But quietly I wish we both believed in the same religion.
So we could stop arguing about it.
So you could think I was a genius.
So you could bask in it all like I did.
But I digress,
I learn to say.
I’ll learn to pray
Another way.

We don’t need to make vows,
To be held and to hold.
To be young and be old.
My gut tells me fate’s star crossed.
My heart tells me to die on the cross.
My head is ready,
For the eventual loss.
I am born in the blood,
Of a sacrificed youth.
Wouldn’t this all be easier,
If we could just tell the truth?
But that heavenly hum,
Against my ear,
With my head on your chest,
I couldn’t care.
Suspended like crossed stars in the sky.
For a moment be here.
For the night be mine.

he brings you petals in the morning
from mismatched flowers
blown away by the wind and drowned
by the dew
you meet him by the door and watch
the sun kiss his cheekbones
you grow a little bit each time you see the flowers
tucked against the lapels of his suit

you are his dandelion, and he your flower boy
you love him with the simple power of nature
ponder the wonders of harmony as he drags his leaves
against your jaw

his pressed petals
make you wonder how
could this get any better
you are a juxtaposition of dress shoes
bathed in marigold
comprised only of truth

what we believe is what we become

and so you never realise how
dress shoes crush dandelions
how ‘flower boys’ wilt into truth
craving the power of ripped petals and cracked stems
blown away into the wind

// hindsight

oh my flower boy
you have forgotten my marigold sunsets
amongst your dandelion dreams
how you wish i were as fragile as
those petals in the wind

Spit out the blood
Sniff your snot dry
Wash yourself in the greywater behind the jungle gym
Try not to cry

Silent son of Themis
Lays cold on the floor
Staring at his arms
Red and raw

His sides are bruised and ugly,
Shades of blue purple and yellow,
He asks his mom for blueberry custard
She says no.

the sky is always the same
my evenings bleak and deranged
however far I run
it won’t change the shoes I’m in

the creeping grief that I used to see
has turned invisible and followed me
a thousand miles is not enough
to escape my crawling skin

the dark in the hills feels invasive
no kinder than the dark in the city
the cars make no less noise
the winter is no less chilly

the earth and the sky are both heavenly bodies,
and we are just stuck in between
reminded of our mortality
in every place we have been

the grass in my back yard
the grass in the south of france
all sound the same in the wind,
all whisper the same secrets,

the city isnt the monster,
the atmosphere is not alone
I am what holds this feeling
this feeling is my home