So what will I do
With my heart?

What will I do with it
Today
Or tomorrow,
How much does it owe,
(How much did it borrow?)

Is it daggered into my
Chest with ruby darts?
Is it butcher wrapped
In class-passed
Love notes,
Or shrink wrapped carnations?
Is it waiting around
For the perfect donation?

And what will I do with my head?

Is it getting bigger?
Will it slot into a shelf?
Is it killing me?
Will it fix itself?

What will I do with it
Next week,
Or next year?
Will it be William Blake
Or Edmund Lear?
(MRI:
blooms - blushes – stains,
This boy’s got roses
on the brain!)

And what will I do with my hands?

What will I do with them
For the rest of my days?
Will they stick to my lap?
Will they flutter away?

Will they get even worse
At unscrewing lids?
Will they shake sticks
at the neighbours kids?

What will I do with my body?
Will it see me through?

What will it do with me?
What will it do?

Me and Dee,
2007.
An afternoon
Scrabble session.

Friendly game
Turning sour,
Silence,
Filling up the hours.

I slyly grin and
Slowly lean.
******* Dee!
“Byzantine”.

He narrows his eyes,
Calm and small,
Then throws the Scrabble board
At the wall.

Bedside origami,
A corset of pins turned
Inward,
Find some solace in folding yourself
Into two pieces,
Tubes scratching the back
Of your throat to
Carry out blood and
Bile as
Thick as treacle.

Puncture wound,
Important vein,
Hits the back of the
Teeth before it
Registers on the skin,
Like a cold hammer
Smashing into
Echoed ice.

Cigarette burn,
Cold,
Setting the edge of
My hair alight,
Dusty, bright,
Almost holy.

Bladder spasms
Like boxer’s kicks,
Yellow rodents
Thashing,
Can’t
Even
Speak.

Thick muscle aches,
The kind that make it
Hard to pour milk
Or ******* -
And leave you like
An OAP in the most
Deathly of winters.

A sensory explosion,
Indoor sunburn,
Lighting up your
Leg
Like a pajama on fire.
Cool flannels will
Do nothing.

Five week constipation,
A car with no
Biting point,
Suspended over a toilet
Crying tears that
Have nothing to do with
Sadness.
The mirror hands you
Back your own
Ugliness with a smile
That is not a smile.

Never
Orchestrate a hook up with a
Ripped and curious hetero
Who dances like Prince.
Ever the idiot, I
Grabbed hold of his hand and
Instigated a kiss, whispering
“All is well with me, I’m a good bet…”
Not knowing just how much of a
Weird night it was going to be.
Ominously, he told me to leave straight afterwards. With
One eye on his sleeping form, I
Didn’t set fire to his flat, but I snapped every one of his cigarettes.

Happy thing -
Come fiercely.
Bend me like a tulip at midnight,
Make something out of me,
Smoke out my *****
And saddle it in gemstones,
Gallop me like a tongue-twisted
Traveller into the
Whole globe’s bedrooms.

Happy happy thing -
Push me!
Make something out of me!
Kid me,
Front me,
Strike me dancing like a hot
Stone,
Hand me cigarettes that I’ll light
From the last one,
And the second to last one,
And the next one.

Happy thing!
Ohhh come colourfully!
Make the world all-a-bright,
Make red as red as a big red love
Or a spitsuckled cherry gumdrop
Of red-red-red-red-red,
Make yellow smear itself
like crushed cats eyes,
Make pastels all pennysweets
And green so luminous that
Clock hands can’t even dream of it.

You beautiful
*******
Happy
Thing!
You happy happy happy thing…!
Songs are burning!
And planets are droaning!
And London is sleeeeeeping,
And the morning is leaping at me!
Is it leaping at you?

My happy thing,
Come noisily.
Sit with me jabbering,
******* with me,
Snog me,
Pull apart my face and
Absolutely ******* drench me
In come.

Happy thing,
Pierce me,
Make me a Sebastian,
Riddle me with spears and watch me
Laugh out the blood,

Happy thing,
Come quickly.
Take my hand and run with me.
They’re shooting at us,
Making saints of us,
And they’ll get us y’know, they’ll get us, they’ll get us –

Happy thing
Come on now dear,
I know the watercolours are running but
Don’t they look pretty
dropping as keenly as our tears –
being caught is just another reason to escape!

Happy thing,
Don’t swallow that.
Are we lowering ourselves?
Are they poking holes in us?
Oh no,
Are they sinking us?

Happy thing,
I hope you always
Come fiercely,
Colours aren’t the same now
And ******* is just a drone of biology.
I promise that
next time we'll be immortal.
Next time we’ll have learned
How to really, really run.

When I was young
I didn’t have the language.
The locus
Of my pain
Was beyond reach,
A book of forgotten
words.
I’m older now,
And sometimes I still think
All the words are foreign.