me and you; we were built like a house.
not perfectly built but could still
withstand all of these blazing tempests
that came uninvited in the intense
darkness that we shared.

we buried ourselves in a crypt;
ethereal to the public eye,
masks were the soil for us to smother
fond flames towards ghouls.
To exhale with you was the best
kind of rarity to divine.

midnight prowls to your attic,
untold by ripped pages of desire;
we soon reached our extremity.
time made us hostages to echolalia
and i wrote a list of everything
you've burnt.

When I was born
I should've automatically been given all the jewels in the world.
I didn't ask for poverty
Enjoy everything from a distance
I wanna be in it.
Not looking up
Fighting the nausea of saying no
Putting life on hold.
It might be selfish
But i believe a parents situation shouldn't involve a child.
A child shouldn't have to
grieve the life they could've had
Even with working.
We wake up to bathroom lights and end our day with them too,
Why would anybody want that?
I'll be homeless soon because my mum wanted a little girl
Who wanted all the jewels in the world.

I guess that Paula, my counsellor,
had decided that I had been trapped in her fishnet tights for too long.
I had outgrown the Doc Marten boots and exercise colouring books.
And when I peered through the window,
i saw her sitting across from a girl around my own age.
They were doing a colouring exercise and I wondered,
did I pass the disease down onto her?
Is that how it works, am I cured?

Drunk on adrenaline
We screamed each other hello from the DLR to the party
Sang each other goodbye before we didn't have a chance to
Four to three went to two and then one with amnesia
I wish I remembered you like I wanted to
I wish I remembered you like I wanted to

Dramatology in its purest form
I wasn't pretending to like you, I do but I was shy
And numb from the railroads that pedalled their manic wheels of fortune
Blessing me with not bravery but temporary bliss
We partied till I remembered you
We parted till I remembered you

Home from a soirée
And I'm done with so called professionals
Writing includes patience and love and a knowledge of character
But it's always excuses
It's part of the story
We all see through your cursive
And take pride in the curses
we put on you
For putting them on us

This is a letter to myself
about someone else.
Her soul is a part of mine,
those strange moments
when her presence
shines in me
like a chiming bell.
Such a calming parallel;
both a hoping poet.

I don't like to know that
she was this afraid.
Dancing in the night,
a hundred treds,
more weight to shed.
Anyone can be angelical
but still gauntly dead
and I'm slightly dead
but if I go, what do I have
to leave behind?

I asked if she wanted to
hang out some time
and in my distress
I was a baby again.
She kept holding me.
But my sadness didn't fall asleep,
my bones became ...
too weak to leave.
Angelic women don't eat
so why should I?

We are prone to
upholding an image -
it makes me sick.
But the familiar feels safe
so I convince myself
I'm just anaemic.
You can see there's something
there behind our eyes
and we're not as
pretty as we seem.
There's something wrong
and it cries.

You are not the martyr here
waited to get well,
what is your situation now?
I hope it’s not as bad as it seems.
Anything for happiness
don’t forget what you’re worth.
It is all dependant on
how you see yourself
and if it’s in the way I see you.

The priest must’ve lost count of tulips swanning into the joint
Red flowing hairs from the backs of their necks
Nervous of what god would do if he knew they didn’t believe in him
But were stamping over the bloodless beds
To get to a bona fide person.
Even if she is just bones.

She was easily found and I, an equally bizarre being
Cut through the graves like a scalpel, rejecting the problems that came with following directions.
My poem would be read, the lavender a blanket that smelt like home
That felt like her temperature rising again.
Though she would hate me hugging the dead out of her.

A bumblebee pricked the vapour into me
And buzzed humorously at my expense.
He turned my throat to zeppelins,
The thicket to the base for a hot air balloon
Where the ghost went on holiday.
She was so proud to haunt me that I gave her free access
Even though it murdered my breath.
I told her “anytime” and I still do
My pain an excuse
To do it again.

Cow print hats, white horses
We stand face to face with them
Two against two

They have us tricked
And suddenly we’re three
Racing into the skyline

She’s got a gun, she’s got a gun
She’s gonna **** me, no different to usual
Still who’s the paragon, which is poison

Gut instinct is hard to go on
Stuffing my face with Burger King
This and the puppet show

Are too intriguing for me to pick
And when I do
I’m stuck with one in the next room.

Stay away from her
she's up and down
antagonistic roundabout
No wonder her girlfriend split
there's something not batting
from her eyes of rouge

Armageddon in vintage clothes
She's thousands of years old
I wipe the soldiers blood from my dead skin, she doesn't know
The centuries of good I gave
To a future of being craved

That's all I ask for
Want nothing much
But here she is still
Making me blush
I'm made of stone, I'm not moving
Ever, ever, ever

I've known you for a second
And I already want to move in.
Look through kaleidoscopes with you as the roof ascends us like shooting stars.
Find the ugliest decor
and kiss each other better after week long benders.
Your **** was a genies lamp
Sitting pretty in the mould of the seventh apartment in a month.
It only takes a second
for me to hit the roof
when you touch me out of the blue.
It only takes a second
For me to fall in love with you.

On first glance,
I wondered how such a beautiful girl could be a poet.
You were what I feared...

I didn't wanna see another clone.  

Then I learnt you bleach your hair
With my mum's leftover snowdrops
To extenuate the curves;
The Venus face I recognise so well,

Cause what I see in you,
I don't see in me even though
I brag we share features
Same particles of the mind

Same wet breaths took.

You're really pretty cool
As I keep saying to those who'll listen to my stanzas and stanzas
Of the stars you saw that night and realised you were real

At least you don't feel like a figment of my imagination
This time it's raw, carefree yet caring so much you wanna combust

And it doesn't make you any less beautiful

Me neither for that matter.

What a shift from what I used to think about girls of confidence.

Now that I feel it myself, I feel found by someone I could love forever
The fragments coming together to make one thing.

A thousand more glances.

I took a wrong step is right.
Who admits that they have a boyfriend after slobbering all over me, their lips hardly lips
Just skin on a pierced face.
The shock of me and our friend, the confession of a lifetime
That I'd be your type in a different universe.

The one where you don't have kids, not that I minded but you'd make up any excuse not to see me again.
The one where what you write has more substance than the vape
You **** harder than your boyfriend's ****.
For a lesbian you're ******* pretty hard.

Apparently I was looking at you
With eyes only a lover would use.
It was totally nothing to do with the ever changing colour of your hair,
Clothes with me all over
The mouth that butted in when it wasn't wanted.
Only for my one eye not to be cool enough for you.

Don't profess your love.
Don't **** and dump.
And don't post your ugly man upon my feed as if he's worth showing off.
Let him hibernate till spring
Unless he's also a fling
If that's the case then prepare to cry and complain in your stupid soliloquy's until it's Autumn again.

Morning crept up on me
but my mind was still asleep.
I used to be wild
then i lost a few teeth along
the way to another sleep.
My little anorexic arms
reimagined what morning
used to be like
before morning was mundane.

You take off your clothes
And the world gets dark
There isn't even a silhouette,
Just a voice asking if I want more.
I want Heathcliff nights
And Hugo greens
Not a body with no meaning.
Every body has a meaning.

Why are you attracted to me?
I'm not attracted to me or you.
I thought I was afraid
Now i'm in the midst of being numb
And i'm fearless.
Deep in my heart I know there's nothing wrong with me
After all, every body has a meaning.

We get lost in what we can’t undo.
She came in day after day
but you can’t mend a broken body.
Sure, there was joy
you see the ones that you love
and you can’t turn away.
But you can’t mend a broken body.
I am only telling, I didn’t see.
She was nine years old,
now she is a woman
and so I see her resilience,
a most beautiful strength that
I once thought of having
but we can’t all be as strong.
She didn’t take her first job,
it was too little.
There was a bigger voice
to be heard, to be loved, to be sang
and she embodies that.
Her face is not to be touched,
her skin is not to be labelled.
Don’t get that get lost in this,
let it be heard.

Boyish, boyish boy
So typical, you play guitar
The boring way
The boy way
The want my body way
You’re not the first to make me compromise
My learning with my ****
Brown eyes scoping Italy
Over my thighs, the ones you snap
Compare to yours
Knowing **** well I tried to starve them E string size.
You’ve got no lips
I’m kissing your cupids bow
Foul, foul morning breath
You take pride in not smelling
But you smell like rotting meat
Meat with hair, too much hair
Even on the back I’m supposed to scratch
And you call me awkward
Blood on my chest
I don’t know how you ******* dare
Grab my breast one more time
I’ll ******* **** you
******* boy.

How do you sleep at night
Knowing the truth is out there somewhere?
Masks won't help you hide from the fact you're a brat, just take the consequences and **** it up.

See we've gone from me loving you, trusting you, protecting you
To me being unsure who to believe
It's not the one with allegations spanning longer than your larynx reflexes

Reflect on that cause babes, they don't sound healthy at all.

I captured her because she wouldn't capture herself
Locks of brunette down her back,
Eyes to the camera
As I was having a heart attack from climbing the long wind
Of a path that drew in leaving no room to clown around
Sing and dance to our hearts content and god knows,
I wish we did that more.

I captured her because she captured me
From when I was blonde to a red she can only recognise
As we lied to our parents about having no friends
And to the briskness of the cold that burdened my skin on the way back
Celebrating a year of meeting in these conditions.
I'm still not able to shut up about her.

I captured her because she captured the moment so well
The stacked up houses that could've fell at a single gush of love,
The books that hadn't been as strong in my bounds of clumsiness
It feels so good not to have to whisper anymore
Even if she makes the world go quiet.
I captured her so I can live in that world for as long as she'll let me.

Chalcot Square reminds me of charcoal
Eyes struggling to fight
Clay melted by sunlight.
Building blocks of pill bottles
Balamory houses in a myth I can’t get to.

I’ll go someday
Until then I’ll keep walking circles
Letting maps lead me into school roads.
I’ll celebrate once I’m dead
Like the ghost of the girl I tried to visit.

I live within states
Divided by fields
I never got drunk in as a teen
Cities I feel I’ve lived in a thousand times
Maybe I handled them better in a past life
The mediocrity of mouse towns
Borrower minds, nowhere to scream these words on a stage
And a seaside that changed my state
In fluctuating, horrifying ways.
I don’t always live within states
But I will in the balmy beach of those summer weeks
I’ll laugh myself up treacherous Greek steps and cry under starlit Swiss skies
The state of me is a never ending paradox…
At least I’ll distract myself from that fact in the art of knowing how to adapt.

Faraway echos and the hum of flies
are like distant lullabies
of a childhood I had almost forgotten.
A childhood written by Charlotte
on an icy blue morning like this one.
How very special is it
to start holding the earth in her eyes
in mine like sapphire raindrops
that dream and cry as humans do.
My breath dances in the fog
as if it was weaving a wordy web
and I smile in my silent ease, it's a
moonlight I remember from years ago.
A charm I still can't fathom
but I want it to stay for the rest of my life.

Cherries blowing up like dark red balloons
and bursting with confetti at house parties.
Sweet sixteenth's and eager eighteens,
underage girls dressed up as barbies.
You see, it's all about numbers.
Like the amount of calories in a cheeseburger
or how many nappies for the baby, soon to outnumber.
Lies and excuses for short term friends
when family know how it's destined to end.
But isn't that the latest trend?
The cost of the newest labels to gain some popularity,
girls these days just need some clarity.
Chasing boys for love, though it's just a quick blow,
see those lips pucker up for a lifeless photo.

I will never forget when a strange case of ultraviolet
welcomed itself into our lives like it had always been there.

From the very start she paraded love; the kind that pulsed through her heart and into ours, just so we wouldn’t feel empty.

Even if there was a Hyde behind the scarlet skies and witching hours, it was prograde or nothing
And that is what makes an angel.

She spellbound those who had never pictured magic
Inferno and resilient in a land that doesn’t sleep.

Cheshire monkey
Is talking in his sleep.
The ramblings of an old man
Comes alive in the dark.

He wraps his floppy arms
And ***** smile around each nightmare that finds me
Like a helter skelter anthropoid.

Amnesia becomes him
As he forgets paddling pools,
By the ears on the washing line
And strawberry puke.

He jumped from vine to vine,
Lily pads of the Avenue
Just to get back to the pushchair that left him in the cold.

Watched from Butlins windows,
Happy to see the adventurer in me
When I take him from place to bewildering place.

Breathes whimsical words,
Amour propre,
Everything that makes him the best friend I ever had.

On this chilling eve
my psyche is numb.
It is never concrete;
the haze plays along.

When the vastness of the train station and trouble with an umbrella cemented a lack of time
We rushed through the rain;
London annoying me to the point I threw myself into the corner shop
Grabbed my pocky without gazing up at the lanterns
And sweated it out on the tube.

One chance to see Chinatown gone
But we had pizza to eat
An ice rink not to go to as we settled for a record fair
Those time bomb nights metamorphosed into bedroom discos, a carefreeness I only understood once seeing you jump up and down in the midst of like minded strangers.

Before that came the Hebden murderers
A song told through the eyes of ducks
Sisters who met on the internet
Shivering to Frankenstein till the ******* night, ******* coffee
Worst 3am of my life crying down the balcony once not feeling your presence.

I’ll never forget the house of Frida Kahlo, it’s guitar
And the champagne drank out of a pop star’s shoe
Chinatown’s gone but we’ll be there again, even if it takes another year and a bit
Because I never shared the feeling of having a sister until I met you.

I wish you were chlorine faced
and force fed the ocean
the way I was given your slander.
To feel the oxygen inside of you
rupture like kicked in teeth
and centuries of creating a family name
sinking to the seabed all because
I looked at you the wrong way.
On a moody day like today
we should be happy to be alive together.
But we're too messed up and
can't confess it.

Chocolate ponds melted into her face,
puppy dog eyes that I'm sure she's used
but I trust myself stepping into them.
It's a new path to follow,
I see the softness of her skin underneath
her pomegranate checked shirts
and a fragility she likes to hide.
Skin that feels safe,
skin that blends into me as the evening
winds become dark apricot fire
and as we ride the angry roads,
our smiles become country lanes.
Everything is raspberry swigs
and running as the days drain out
into relief, forever.

Your world is so confusing.
I'm ambushed with colour
going insane with some longing
that I'll never be able to explain.
As long as you keep standing there
composing a cadence in my heart
I'll keep journeying through it,
milking your clairvoyant eyes.

I see so many addictions,
special labels.
These clean surfaces
are getting old,
I want to be white dust
but I fall away
and you can clean me up
but I’ll still clutter
in my own little way.
The day is like a dream
except I don’t sleep.

Tonight she compelled me -
i could no longer run.
Those said features of delicacy
hit me, punched me, killed me.
So violent that it was perfect
and i just stood still
because she was perfect too.

I stand at the cupboard door
Open, close, open, close.
I shed tears,
As shameful as that is,
And bare a hole in my stomach
Though I ate seconds before.
The sad thing is
Is that I keep it down,
I do nothing when I'm done
And I rinse myself of it
I say tomorrow will be different...
Then the gaping comet growls
large in my chest
My belly and my head
One special treat and it'll subside.
Nothing will save me now.
By thirty I'll have consumed it all
I'll be able no longer.
One side of the galaxy is the same as the other - they both die in the same cruel manner.

She cradled the stars before she died, she lured them in like she did with me. Pale landscapes, darkened hands, this is what she did, this is what she loved.

She investigated the way the love of her life moved like a tendril
that didn’t have the same devotion or patience that poured like finger ink.

She had no time, she didn’t understand her crescent moon mind and so paved away the thick red lines, as if the madness would vanish.

But the madness in her clotted like a hazardous playground,
all she wanted was to be loved in return by the one she called her saviour.

She was forever quizzical; ”why are you like this?” She would ask. Knowing she had seen her love freaking out on the bathroom floor just the day before.

She tried to control the flow but there was a barrier between abnormal and well. It didn’t stop her from craving a kiss but the kiss was stale, it was dead.

She deserved someone who wasn’t evasive. Not a curer but a good conscience that wouldn’t even help undo; just indulge in the sodden and non sodden parts.

And if she had’ve let me, I would’ve liked to be that person. I could’ve done anything to see the untroubled moments and the realisation that she is worthy of this.

And when I come to think about it, she really does suit death. One day I’ll be dead too, maybe I’ll see her linking arms with it, telling it a joke. Yeah. I like that.

Sapphire tears bleed from my eyes
I look up, I look up, I look up
Searching for a hideout in the sky
To no constellations
Just the empty float floor tonight.
Nostalgia is prised open -
There's no chances to share dances
But on these rare occasions
I feel future latch onto my hand
And so I cry, happy, drunken.

Shiny red apples are cuddled tightly by the leaves,  
Tag you're it and hide and seek went on for days.
Secrets told and wishes unleashed
On a rusty swing set stained with memories.

Chaos and noise consume the house,
Mud dripping from our dainty size one shoes
As she fills up the jug with water
And sprinkles it like sugar over the daffodils.

Plant pots are kept outside in the garden,
They look up and smile with their little green faces.
Perhaps they are her other grandchildren,
Although they can't remember the stories she always told.

Silver silk slips through my fingers like fairy dust,
The pink duvet is a sugarcoated blanket of safeness
In a world so full of witches casting evil spells
And creating vigorous snow storms.

Exquisite jewellery glittering from the bedside table,
Her makeup and perfumes excite ten year old me
As I sit at her mirror, pretending to be like her.
A woman with inspiring dreams and a heart of wonder.

A summery sensation frees me,
i lay my head upon the bed
of forgotten nighttime terrors
and it blooms into a rare happiness.
Here it only ever happens;
gratitude for the solitude.
It appears like a daytime lullaby
and it's all because of you.

Wilted, dead roses.
Red velvet turned into dust.
Fake poses, filtered for comfort.
A life filled with lust.

Trampled on roses,
breaking at the touch.
Love loses every time,
shaking with fear and a blush.

Clouds drift against scarred wrists,
Lines and lines of never ending twists.
Paper people holding hands,
Sitting quietly in a plastic land.

Fingers brushing past
but never interlocking.
Their stems too scared to stand,
ignorant minds throbbing.

This town is garden
of weak petals.
Their creases dripping with blood,
people drowning in the mud.

We are living in a crumpled
up piece of paper.
Eyes thundering with vicious jealousy,
up to no good.

What we manifest
is something so dishonest
and i hate to say it
but i stopped loving you.
All of the birthdays
have faded to dispersive
greying clouds and unsaid
words but never hate.
Just dead sympathy for
the kind things you didn't say
while you were still alive.
See, I finally got the words out.
And they will still want me
to be upset. I'm not but I am.
I'm still. Just still.

Your eyes beseech us
Implore our feminine instincts
To give in
We are swooning, we  are easy
We are like driftwood
We are the deer
And you are the knights
The charlatans...
you are the firearms
The bullets fleeting
The hearts that stop beating
When you climb on top of us Decrescendo of breathing
It's all black and white to you
But who can blame you
We are pallid
We are rainbow
We are heathered
We are jet
Face it
You're panting in and out
While laying on a corpse
She just died
She'll be there underneath you
Till the second death occurs
Third, fourth, fifth
Hundredth
Your face is everywhere
Undeniably slick
You think you're gods gift
You don't deserve the consequence
We deserve hell
Well, I hope this shakes you
If the law doesn't break you
And nobody ***** you.

Did you hear it?
That soft whisper.
A brush through of hair,
Hands on your shoulder.

Did you see it?
Those deep grey eyes,
Searching for you.
Lonely, desperate,
And they seem to be lost.

Did you find it?
Your English book,
These words are more important
Than the ones I try to say.
My breath shortens.

Did you realise it?
That I am here, I exist.
Probably not.
So I guess I’ll just go.

Disney Films and Nickelodeon were always on the television.
Millions of cushions laid upon,
Watching high school musical and dreaming of love.
Wishing that I could be Thumbelina
While the boy I liked was Prince Cornelius.

The cat was my only friend,
Though he still dug his sharp claws into my skin
And I couldn't blame my special teddy for hating me
As I left him all spit-covered and stinky.
But where were you when the chocolate milkshake started tasting bitter?
Where were you when I covered my pain with animal stickers?
Where were you to heal the cat's scratches with plasters?
Where were you when I wrote my goodbye letters?

While my cousins played outside climbing trees,
I sat by myself on the grass picking daisies,
Hoping to God that soon it would be time to leave
Because you were acting up and everyone could see.
Was alcohol more important than me?
Sleepovers where we would eat sugar dough
And throw squeaky toys for the dog.
Making friends with kids on club penguin,
Trading Pokémon cards and talking throughout the night,
Trying on false nails for the first time -
They all became hard to bear
As all we could do was stare at you
Giving your drink yet another stir,
Now insert the awkward slurs.

You didn't see when the blisters on my ankles swelled up
And in school I was doing well but to you, I was never quite good enough.
Poetry and songs were written to escape
from those who gave me ***** looks
But when I showed you, you just didn't give a ****.
Girls would laugh at me because I wasn't like them
And boys sniggered when I walked past because I had no *** appeal.
All I wanted was to find my Prince Charming
But I didn't want to dress up like a Barbie.
I admit that a Wotsits and spaghetti diet is unhealthy
But ***** for dinner every night, really?
You ignored my cries for help so I stopped caring about myself.
Is that how it's supposed to be?
Is alcohol more important than me?

I never told you that I actually like girls too
Because I knew you wouldn't care
Or you'd never look at me in the same way again.
Where were you to play with my hair like other mum's do?
Where were you to teach me the basics
Like one add one equals two?
Even though I was your only child,
It felt like nothing was mine.
And in this house, one add one equals two.
But where were you to hold me when I would cry?
To say that this place is a home would be the biggest lie ever told.
I relied on other people to protect me against you; The Cold.
And now you are the one to fold up my clothes.
Will you be there to love me now that I am gone?

I sent you my daydreams
we travelled the world.  
I took your cold hands
exchanged them for lights.
Talked into divinity,
I let myself be open again.
Reconciled with loving.
Then you left me.
It’s how it always goes.

I don't understand anyone's reasoning when they pull this ****
Stay friends for six years or more,
Seven the luckiest but dumped in ****, especially in knowing
This is supposed to be the halfway mark to a forever duo.
Who needs a duo when you have a million chavs, million euro credit cards you don't offer to the poor
Dying for parties, dying for fun
Dying for a piece of your love.

More than a question about exams isn't too much to ask for, is it?
Support your business, congratulate you on the sixth kid you'll never look after yourself,
Maybe the seventh'll be more blessed
If it isn't born from a cheated partner, the one you fell out with me for.
Okay lack of morals, shove it up your emotionless *** of our memories
For I won't be licking it anymore.

I was street dove eyed
Another sleepless passenger
When the war between the lighthouse and the smog began.

Chimneys
dating back to Victorian times
Shipped their bakery smells to the salt and grease

The colossal banks of them
Victorious in their pursuit to have me step foot into
West Yorkshire's bell jar.

I scoured the trees for spider monkeys, clinging to the backs of their vampire boys
An alabastrine, dazzling climb

Which furthered my trek to the hardcastle crags;
The medieval houses cheering me on in their church pew rows.

Where the hill went up and up and up, so much that the bus was about to tip - on the edge of the world I was.

The twilight town, still green from September, and to think I was drafted to fight for the sea
When Hebden Bridge is where I want to be.

Eleven January's
And I'm still starving
Health seems appetising
and I look it
but beneath the bark
I'm skin and bone

Eleven January's
Walking through the thickness of it
In May i will be exhausted
And camp out in forest December
Where it's too warm to jog
I'll take it easy till Christmas

Eleven January's
Of what now?
I'm big again
There's so little space
All I can do is trick it
And hope it expands

Eleven January's
And the hunger hasn't stopped
The hunger to be wanted
The hunger to be loved
The hunger to be held
The hunger to be dead

Eleven January's
More and I'll go mad
If I'm not six feet under
I'll be six feet in width
Ashamed either way
So I'll just wait and see

Eleven January's
Of hot chocolate to herbal tea
It's the way it always goes
But the stories intertwine
And I believe every lie
Because it makes me feel high

Eleven January's
Of shelly beaches
Townie roads
The promenade stretches
Further than I
As I drift like a glint

Eleven January's
I am a fat smog sleeping on the job
There's no time to wallow
I take my last swallow
That's it, I'm never doing this again
Then let's go feast somewhere

Eleven January's
And I haven't seen you
I haven't shrunk 
Not thin enough
For you to take me seriously
To want me

Eleven January's
I hurt myself for nothing
My heart is small and slow beating
hanging on by a locket
Who needs weights in their pockets
When they don't kick but break the bucket

Eleven January's
How long doesn't matter
It's the damage you do
And it's not you
It's January
So far for me, it's eleven

Estranging

The sky is purple
And all I can do is think about how loud I was about you.
It’s raining but it’s humid
The page glowing, my heart growing
Piano and guitar signalling
That this isn’t gonna draw to a close
Any time soon.

The planes make their noise
Its passengers having no clue
About the girl beneath them
With her phone torch on as the light fades
Lilac to bluebell chemtrails
Lilacs to hell and betrayal
Not from you but from the elastic roads and estranging moon.

They say a staring contest conjures up love
But what if I can’t stare?
What if my eyes are too wonky, too glossy with teardrops
Brought on by simple gusts of wind and a shudder to my soul?
What if those two minutes it apparently takes to fall in love isn’t enough for someone to look past that?

I got asked too many questions when I was a child and didn’t understand
To a university car park where I was asked about the elephant in the room.
I didn’t realise it was so obvious and so I only approached men in the dark
Because they don’t analyse me like women do but still - the dark.

In job interviews, family interrogations, friends I’ve known for years, shops, dog walks, red haired singers I’ve met
I don’t give eye contact
What do you mean I have to look at the whole of their face and not just the eyes?
I must’ve looked like I wanted to **** the blue, green, amber out of them like the undead.

I think I would worry less about this with a vampire.
They use their teeth to communicate rather than castigation…
The living are too focused on the rules of colourless conversation
When the staring contest dies, their attention dies.

What?

To lower myself to their watch
with their black eyes,
knowing eyes.
There’s no love poems,
just eyes and lifeless bodies,
non feeling, not levitating
like you would think.

Since I learnt of death
I've been burdened with blood work
Clots made by simply breathing
And losing them too soon.

Scared out my wits, I live like it doesn't matter yet
Shower check, fear to consume anything of strangeness...

What would I do with nobody left?
Figure I'd rather die,
I already considered it on trampolines and daisy fields -

That I'd be happy not saying goodbye given I'd still have the untouched, slit hearts
From not expecting my departure.

I can't believe I feel like a coward
For bowing out of a recovery
So gripping it killed them all
In the form of a flesh wound.

It may as well be the universe before we're born changing its mind
And cradling us close to its chest
The rest of death being... dead.