A boy in jeans,
A boy in trousers,
A boy in braces,
A boy in blouses,
A girl who smells like summer sweat,
A girl whose makeup hasn’t set,
A boy who swears,
A boy who doesn’t,
A girl’s shoulder,
A second cousin,
A girl who smells of **** and beer,
A tattooed boy with a silver sneer,
A skinny girl who’s got T.B,
A boy who daintily sips his tea,
A girl’s left leg – bare or stockinged,
A boy so cold his knees are knocking,
A nasty ****,
A suede-head killer,
Kate Moss,
Sienna Miller,
Vivienne Westwood’s crazy teeth,
Bow-legged loons on Hampstead Heath,
Blue eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes, green,
Cold eyes, big eyes, sad eyes, mean,
Darling sweethearts in flirty skirts,
City-Boy ******* in well-pressed shirts,
Elbows, throat, wrists, knees,
A consumptive girl’s chainsmoking wheeze,
Blonde girls with their hair in plaits,
Skinny boys, short boys, muscular, fat –
Girls with pink lipstick like strawberry frosting,
I’m telling you man,
It’s ******* exhausting.

Fourteen years old
and my life was a trap -
My ankle was caught
All red and ragged
In the jaws of an age-old machine
Designed to catch boys.
But there was a missing cog –
a little *****,
because there was a way,
(There was a way)
There was a way
to
get away…

College Library,
Domed and dark,
The silence disturbed by a bluebottle’s
Rumble
And the sly ticking of my own gold watch.
Oh! Getting high on the smell of
Other people’s universes,
Tissue thin and
Dogeared immortal -
Gotcha!
I’ve got 'em all!
You can’t contain me in these walls,
I can go an – y -where.

I can get drunk on Holden’s Highballs
Or Sebastian’s brandy,
I can weep at the grave of Ignatius Riley’s
Sexually inappropriate ****-fantasy dog,
I can neatly eat Prufrock’s peach
Or a dismal breakfast in a seaside caff
With Dallow and Spicer
And dear Rosaried Rose
With one eye on the sea and
Some lukewarm tea.
I can spend a season with my namesake,
Far away from Heaven,
And shake hands with Satan as he
Finishes a speech,
Wiping his mouth on a swollen
rock,
Hot as heaven and black as a leech.
I can walk that sheep on B612,
I can whip around the Second Circle
Of Hell
Or lock myself in a toilet
With Franny,
I can live in a garret with a garrulous ****** -
I can be East of Eden,
Wonderland,
I can die in Venice,
I can shoot soldiers in the sand,
I can lust after Lo – lee – ta
Tip of the tongue,
I can be a girl,
I can be a nun,
Blow into a conch,
Diffuse a bomb,
Digest my lunch,
Be a sub,
Be a dom,

I can sparkle here,
I can be free here,
I can just be here
And there are no rules here,

Just one boy
And a book
And a bluebottle
And a watch.

Aw dear -
What a flawed design for a cage!

I had a dream
that you were a baby
in my arms.
I can't remember,
No,
I can't remember much,
only that you were a baby,
and you were sleeping
in my arms.

I love it when you come to stay Bea -

with your night time t-shirt
that tells me
'tomorrow is a mystery'.

My internet history reads
Achica, free p and p,
and I have a box of barely touched
salted caramel tea.

Zoe hangs back,

My home-time mayhem
with half a head of hair,
pink neon flashing up her cherry studded arms.

My cufflinks snag and shake,
trying to make her see,
trying to make her see something.

when we are home
and towels are hung to dry,
when the clouds are soot and black
and blue is shy

when the waterbed is hotter than the sun,
when the soppy christmas ******* has begun

I will think about this summer
and how warm
the sand was,
and how we owned the dawn

when I walked with you
along a gold foot track,
with suncream sweethearts tanned onto my back.

The English vice,
Some Etonian curse –
Set down in grass
And purple verse,

Lavatory bred
With ransacked blood,
Skin slapping and
With a falling thud –

Takes boys at childhood,
Wishes them away,
With promises of popper fuelled buffets,

And poisons them with
Vice and virus red,
And sees them unmarried
Giving head.

I don’t regret a single thing I am,
I’ve tried it out
And can’t abide the sham –

I’ll **** men
And make them beg for more,
I’ll scrabble for their love upon the floor,

I’ll love men
And love will love me too,
I’ll love for love’s own sake
And when I’m through

I’ll die and I’ll be thankful that your hate
Never made me beg that I was straight.