And
I cannot help but wonder,
how much more
there can be
to endure.
How many more
oceans of silence
must I sail?
How many more
deserts of nothingness
must I drag myself across?
How many more
hopeless forest fires
must burn through me?
I am strong
and
I will stay so,
but still
I wonder
when the horizon
will give way
and I can say
it is over
at last.

I am
malleable,
changeable,
I shift my shape
with almost
every breath.
So tell me
what you want, love,
and I will be her,
as best I can.
Draw her lines
and I will fill them.
Select her colours
and I will wear them.
Write her words
and I will speak them.
As best I can.

And
if I could
break it down
to it's
bare bones,
I would say
that with every
beat
of my
fractured heart,
you
heal
me.

The most
fragile
of truces,
held together
on a
silver hair's
breadth.
Sail
your fingers
across
the ocean
between
our shipwrecked bodies
and say
it will
all be
ok.

*It has to be ok.

And the
secret
hairpin curve
of
my smile
is
testament
to
what
last night
meant.

Not being
locked in
feels an awful lot
like being
locked out.

After
a period
of recovery,
I am
sick with you
again.
The fever
burns to the bone
and
makes me
see things
that cannot
be.
Love
is
killing me
slowly,
one
poisoned heartbeat
at a time.

I
will
never
abandon
the
hope
that
tomorrow
will
be
better.

When they tell you,
in cheap whispers
and poison tongues,
that
I am broken,
that
I am cold
that
I cannot love,
that
I have done things
that would make you weep
should you ever know them,
I hope you tell them
that
you know better.
Because
darling, you know me.

To be
a footnote
in the life
of the one
whose story
you wrote across
every inch
of skin,
is perhaps
the greatest injustice
of all.

When I think of you now,
I think of you in abstract.
You are not scratched into my skin,
vivid and ******.
You are vague,
a crude outline
on a crumpled sketch.
There will come a time
when I will struggle to recall
the way
you rolled your cigarette,
you mixed your drink,
you said my name
like a liturgy
and a damnation,
all at once.

I don’t know when
an inch became a canyon
my fingertips cannot cross,
a no mans land
I cannot claim.

You may as well be worlds away.

I left hairs on your pillow
‘accidentally’,
in the hope that just once,
you might dream about me.

I sometimes think
I could drain my blood
and use it
to write my name
on your walls,
just to hear you say it.
I need you to know me
so badly it scares me.

I believe
it was Neruda
who once said
‘Tonight
I can write the saddest lines’.
Well I guess
tonight,
I can write
books,
encyclopaedias,
libraries
and still never say enough.
You are the words in my sentence
and the poem in my pen,
even now.

The sky
is turning
gun metal.
The ocean
beats more fiercely
now.
Here it comes.
That tsunami –
doubt.
I am small,
afraid,
too battered
and beaten
from previous storms
to hold back
this tide.
You are changing your mind.

Please don’t change your mind.

Under this same
leaden sky,
there are millions
like me.
Each caught
in the cyclone
of their own
lonely hour.
Whose blue hearts
shiver violently
and yet burn
for something,
for someone,
for anything.
As long
as we have each other,
we are not alone.
I am not alone.
This is I tell myself,
always.

A happy ending
is an ending
all the same.
Give me drunk fights
and slurred sharp words.
Give me kisses
that draw blood.
Give me hands
held so tightly
half moons
adorn the galaxy
of your palm.
Give me an imperfect always
any day.

I have been away
for a while.
Too long, I think.
I was not lost.
No,
never lost.
Maybe
just wandering.
But I was always coming back.
Coming back to me.

And you will see me
and you will wonder
who she is,
this woman
with earthquakes in her bones
and stardust falling from her fingertips
like rain upon the desert.
And I will tell you.
I am me.
Without you.
As I was always
going to be.
The wanderer
has come home.

Four
punches
and
I am
down:
I.
Don’t.
Love.
You.

Sit for a while
in the midnight garden,
flicking matches
onto wet grass.
The poetry
of idle conversation
trips off my tongue
with the ease
you always
inspired.
The low hum
of young blood
and
your thumb
gripped tight
in my palm.
It is a good life
I think.

We are not pretty,
I’m sure you’ll agree.
Paintings will not be hung of us.
Ballads will not be sung of us.
They will not speak of us
with hushed reverence
and dreamy smiles.
We will not be
the benchmark
by which
all other lovers
are measured.
They will not like us.
But by God
they will remember us.

The air grows thick
as the last eye closes.
Amongst steady
slow breaths,
I hold mine.
You.
Me.
Finally.
****.
Here goes nothing.
Here goes every last ******* thing.
Because if there’s one thing in this life
that I know to be true,
it’s that friends make lovers
in darkened rooms.

My words
to you
are like knots;
an impenetrable,
nonsensical
tangle,
unless you
pick
pick
pick
at them.
I know now
why they call it
‘tongue-tied’.

I think
there is an ocean in your chest.
Your eyes rain tears
and they fall in your mouth.
Yes, I think there must be.

And I let you spread.
And I let you sink.
And I let you cleanse
and clear
my storm cloud soul.
Lungs fill with a breath
long held.
I am nothing to you.
You are nothing to me.
And yet.

5:43 am.
Sunday.
Waking up
to crumpled sheets
and bruised knees,
birds nest hair
and ***** raw throats.
We are the eye
of our own storm.
You said
Kid,
we are the hurricane.

Once you were an atlas
that my hands ached to trace.
Miles spread before me,
a planet in concentrate.

To roll like a child
down the valleys of your ribs,
to race the sunset
across the horizon of your throat.

To swim for hours
in the halcyon of your eyes,
to lie amongst the flowers
in the crook of your elbow.

Of all the lands
I have travelled in my time,
I can say in truth,
you are my favourite.

And when I die,
tell them to bury me here,
my epitaph written
in the freckles on your wrist.