so i started this poem
thinking about you
even though i'm not
allowed to think
about you anymore,
even though
i said i'd written my last poem
about your taste, even though
i've moved on,
i've found another one
with your name so i can
change all the connotations,
even though i don't even
think about you
that much
anymore
i was thinking about you now,
even though you no longer
interest me, not really,
you're just another old event
in my mind, and i hope
you haven't figured out
that i'm trying to change
your name's connotations

as a lock i am content.
smooth metallic surface skin
(perfect shiny smooth so i smile)
mechanics behind eyes
mouths hands ankles
special functions each. i feel
content with my place, i feel
satisfied with my perceptions,
i am fulfilling my
daily roles, my existence
is justified, i feel physically
full – not from the stomach but from
the guts, not with food but with
blood like a rush-reaction
heating up, flushing red
like my lips after what we did
on my bed on saturday
(always slightly on edge with our
programmed satellite ears extended out
in case some innocent wandered in)

everything in its right place
my plodding daily satisfaction
(to satisfy mysthesystemelf)
no happy hours but happy days,
healthy children, healthy lifestyle
feeling pure and therefore proper
and therefore all is well.
i repeat. all is well.

i woke up today turned on
the coffee giant poured a cup,
drank the tar pleasantly surprised
by a peck on the cheek from my
husband_ kids sent off to school_
stayed at home all day_ husband
off to work_ came home, he came home_
i had a lovely day, thank you,
obligatory post-dinner ***
and
as a lock i am content.

Cloud-vacant darkened sky,
muffled ears
under woolly coolness
of chocolate-icing water,
choppy,
unsmooth,
iced by an unprofessional
child-chef.

Stretched-out limbs
like a blown-up starfish
floating dumb and mindless
and alone.

Bobbing apples, eyes obscured
temporarily, under cold salt
swishing
swashing
slipping sliding.

Sticky candy-apple lips
pursed tight against
salty smoothness
licking
lapping
lisping loving.

Slow breaths flow freely
through nose,
sticking upright from the water like
ancient uncovered bones
from sand;
Wind whipping off years of hiding
to reveal
the unknown death.

Slowly floating, bobbing
silent, unaware
from the sand: waves washing
gently, nudging
against the starfish boy.

Leading him
away
from shore.

Sun settled over
beetroot sky, like
mother hen over
clutch.

And I could smell
the beetroots burning
against horizon
shift.

Sizzle-flip
and turn them over.
Leaking pale red into
the sea.

One dimensional folding paper,
greaseproof (we presume);
Wrap it up, tape the ends.
Send light to the moon.

I have opened up my mouth
and taken out a spare pair
of butterfly wings
(pinched between thumb
and forefinger),
used-to-be-dusty but now
slightly damp from their
place of residence.
I dried them myself,
striking match after match
and holding each underneath,
close,
but not too close.

Instead of drying they
shrivelled up like petals
after leaving the flower.
As if to preserve warmth,
curling inwards,
they shivered, animated
by the heat of the glowing stick.

The flame got too close
to my fingers. I dropped it,
swearing. Pinched the wings too
hard (reflexes), the membrane
broke between my fingers
and the remnants
of freedom fluttered softly
to the ground.

I'll be eaten alive one day:
one day, i see it in my mind
so close to closure along an empty street
late at night
(owls just retired and birds
not yet up),
orbs of light tethered to tall electric poles
cast dappled circles on cracked pavement;
illumination and safety
(for that two metre radius).

Stepping between them
like a girl child on stones
across a garden,
I anticipate each missed step
as sinking into sand or frightful waves.

Singing drunk back-alley lullabies
i'll soothe the skelebabies in their sleep,
their poor crusted noses snuffled against
a cold shift of air
(their private torment plastered over billboards
with corporate logos and dim colours,
suggesting the city's lights have gone out and
the local government is in frantics.
That is, after all, what you'd focus on)

Girl child games were so tipsy and magic
(and so close to real coldness);
between two orbs of light i'll slip
through the cracks
in the pavement.

THE END.

(eat me alive,
eat me alive,
eaten alive by the
wolf at the door)

In this, my last hour of rhyme,
with stains uncontainèd by shaking hands
Spreading like red soldiers running wartime
untempered by generals shouting commands
Then laughing like drunkards, drowning in wine
that rich purple spills out from its barrels
Then lying on bartops, eyes shine porcine
and unheard soft voices hiss curses and carols.

O, woe be on me if I speak out of time;
out-tumbling come innards, spewed from a mouth
Which whispered sad prayers in corners of grime:
hints of spring-season on trips to the south;
Watch them out-tumble, watch horri-divine
like the death of the tragic, acted but true
Yet laughing old minstrels declare it quite fine:
and friends ensure royal-men breathe not from the blue.

Hours fly past on wings of the Sun
who turns misted eyes from child-fight below
And lives lives of many, but cares not for none
not least merchant servants, throttled in the snow.
I fade and I fade: a blossom once watered
and love of the stage is clogging my throat
It changes my words: I fight it, I fought it
and hot-wet floods up with drowning and choke.

This minute, these words: I defy death.
And cold, outward slipping: my slow final breath.

january's the year
where mottled greyness
mingles in with a spitting torrent
of teawater
and shyly showing
slowing

a shadowed gold wisp
of cloudy hushedness
settles past broken branches
and scratched identity
mossed-over

past purple stones
upon the leaves of day
and afternoon's
gleaming water shimmer
though fathomed reaches falls
into icy teacup thoughts
through unswept orange light

in shortened shadows
down from a scudded moon
of frog dimples
and imperfect rays
as fire-cold steam
rises to a rapid slip-stream
and crish-crash clouds
hush and sigh:
diminished lightening shock

1.
Your specimen:
the cat.
He lies, a stretched out
blob of
whirring, whizzing particles:
You can’t see them –
he can.

2.
His fur is
dried old carpet
left out on a front lawn:
homeless,
floorless;
waiting to be claimed.

3.
His eyes are
blank marbles
flicked by sticky fingers
in a game.
You won them
by cheating,
and stole them but they
turned to mush
in your hands, they
fell through your fingers, and
stained them with purple:
it would not wash off.
It grew:
an omnipresent reminder
trickling down your arms,
pooling at your elbows.

4.
You raise the scalpel:
it is a crescent moon
speckling down to
illicit behaviour
below.

5.
The portraits on the walls
applaud
when you make the first
CUT.
and reveal the
gooey caramel
dripping, circulating, inside.
It sticks to
the blade, forming
clumps of purple
that harden to a
crystallised-honey form.

6.
Later you sleep
with the cat;
he lies on your bed
and purrs
(does he purr?)
and you label the jars:
“Dissection 15”.

pretty little sticky thing caught my tongue
and I think it’s time to come clean
and wipe down my benches
with fake lime liquid particles
and faded yellow cloths.

twisted the blue plastic out of my teeth,
wiped the mustard from my lips
(was laid on too thickly anyway)
popped the fishscales out from my eyes,
smiled.

let the rose water run thick and hot
in the bathtub, let in flow in and out
of all my cavities, like it and I were
almost one
(I’m already so much rose water
anyway),
opened my flabby mouth and swallowed.

pretty little green thing got stuck in my tongue.
time to come clean.

little man by the bus stop
with his tin organs, all replaced
because his real ones failed him
(jst like he failed his old wfe)
squat top hat and fat wide smile
and he’s almost a cartoon
and he’s almost not a person.

Give me your inspiration.
Come on, you have enough already.
This isn’t fair, I protest;
how is it that you can create
a dozen pretty iced-cupcake poems
a day and I can’t?

Honestly –
sharing is caring.
I don’t want it all,
just a little bit.
A tenth will suffice.
It won’t take much from you,
I swear! you’ll still be writing
ten-point-eight cupcakes
a day.
Now would that be so bad?

No? Well, then.
Be like that.
It’s not like
I need inspiration …

Once there was a mad Arabian poet,
he said,
who wrote a Book of Death
and an Unsettling Couplet
and inspired him
in the way that a car-wreck
may inspire a tattooist’s
gruesome designs.

O, the frightening things
that ran through his mind!
So unsettled was he,
so disturbed.
O, the way that they leered
at his table they dined!
So confused were his colleagues,
so perturbed.

God, the things that came creeping
in the early hours of dawn
when the town was asleep
and the moon was forlorn.
How he tossed in his sleep –
Was it sleep? was it real?
There were Things he did see
there were Things he did feel.

Lovecraft, Lovecraft –
my quiet recluse –
why are you so pale?
Pray tell. What phantom-horror
did you see in the night?
Why are you so blue?
Why do you shake? Are you
ill, are you sad, are you
broken in the mind?

But all of the doctors,
the scientists, the friends,
THEY COULD NOT REALISE
the horror, the nightmares,
the Things in the dark.

Escape through your head
through the blood-and-ink stained alleyways
within. Retire to your room
with a pen and an electric light.
Try as you might
not all of your stories with
their horror that some find unspeakable,
others disturbing –
THEY CANNOT EXPRESS
that pure form of fear
your mind feels at the idea
of the mad Arab’s couplet.

*That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange aeons, even death may die.

My blood runs cold
My heart beats slow;
and I can see the world
groaning as it spins
upon the point
of a finger.

My pupils dilate
I fear it may be too late;
and trees are twisting
mouths are yawning
open to swallow
the stars.

My veins contract
Life no longer intact;
so far from the horizon
and that burning bright sun
dazzling my blind
creamy eyes.

I can see it in the shadows of my walls
the corners of the empty white rooms
the concave stomachs of little kids
your dried, chewed-up bottom lip
the hollows of Mum’s cheeks
the ticking of a metronome
the gaps in the bookcase
the crusty, sore noses
the bleeding nails
the white walls
skinny wrists
burnt paper
filaments
unlights
people
limbs
you
me.

January’s light is bright and sure;
Skipping, dancing, o’er river and moor.

February’s lamp is warm and yellow;
Prancing, jumping, like faeries so mellow.

March’s candles are orange and cool;
Autumn leaves drop into the pool.

April’s sun is starting to fade;
Slowly, slowly, trying to evade.

May’s moon is cold and bright;
Illuminating even the darkest night.

June’s glow is small and short;
So little present, so dearly sought.

August’s dawn is soft and thin;
But slowly growing from the dim.

September’s beacon is red and crescent;
Emerging from the darkness to be ever-present.

October’s star is hot and strong;
The days and shadows are growing long.

November’s torch is happy and loud;
Laughing and playing alongside the crowd.

December’s bulb is joyous and true;
It was lighted for me; it was lighted for you.

Shimmering
Disillusion
in the darkness.

Dancing
Bright lights
Cast tiny speckles
of colour.

Rain drops
on glass panes
Are,
briefly,
Illuminated.

Dew-dropped night
stands
ever-hushed and empty.

Heavy clouds
weigh on sky, in
Anticipation.

Two thousand people sleep
And only one
Watches the lamplight.

Life is a curious thing;
as fragile as glass,
as precious as gold.

Spun slowly from a thousand strands of silver
spider web.
Sewn and patched together from
old clothes,
by the sorrow-sweet whistling
of the wind.

Made in
a shell
that a child has placed against his ear
to hear the sea.
Made with
Sea foam
and Mermaids’ songs
and Rocky cliffs
and Storm and Lightening
and Laughter.

Nothing more than
a fluffy white cloud
which gradually turns greyer
the further Time carries her lantern
across the sky.

Beautiful,
delicate,
Unique,
perfect,
simple,
present,

so
­amazingly
solidly
Dreamlike.

we are all falling
and eating our eggs
so blindly we eat them
we chew up our teeth
like a mouthful of chairs
like a gathering of bears
like a discordant tea party
we lap on our legs
we love all our swines
we swallow our foetuses
we plant pretty flowers
and consume each other’s mouths
like we’re trying to really taste
our mouths are so dry
we saliva each other
our insides are outsides
we are all sea creatures
we are all so wet and bubbly
we are so blatantly in love
like drawers full of teeth
like hands full of piano keys
like carpets soaked in birth fluid
we all are so slippery
we’re blinding our faces
we’re deafening our toes
we’re eating our eggs
and we’re falling

Hath thou seen Queen Mab to-day?
in that bitter carriage, with her dreams
         Forwarding to the cursèd fray
with unhallowed thoughts, or so ’twould seem
         And creeping under willow’s bough
’pon rotting leaves and sick’ning scents
         Of fretting unborn babes and now
she peddles with a marred intent
         With foreign faeries in the leaves
who show broken wares and scattered souls
         They hide amongst the dripping reeds
while dying rays reflect on shoals
         And here, on the last hour of light
mab cursed the world into the night.

Slippery tentacles swirl,
overlapping each other
in eagerness,
engulfing,
embracing,
the others.

To be mindless
clay thoughts
clumping, and
separating
with the tide.

Slimy, as seaweed
but smoother, and yet
bumpier
as well.

Slipping, sliding,
simple thoughts of
embrace,
simple arms of the
octopus.

This is our love:
we hold it plainly
it is so creamy
it is so smooth.

How we will love
without complaining
like purple straws
and orange fruit.

How we would dream
while sleeping slowly.
How we would laugh
how we would cry.

We smile like moons
with dimples, holey
we are like oysters
we are so shy.

This is our love:
we hold it plainly
within little hands
within petal skies.

I don’t want to write yet another poem about you
about your gorgeous words,
and how they trickle like honey down my neck.
about the sweet way you seem to like
to email me.
for no reason at all.
about your smile, your laugh
and the way they just suit your face
so well.
about the fact that you once surreptitiously
asked for my number.
about the way you under-state things.
about your eyes.
about the curves of your lips.
about your glasses
and braces.
it’s creepy.
i really need to stop writing
about you.

Poet for hire:
has a year-and-a-half’s full-on experience
likes metaphors
and similes that don’t make sense.
Will probably write poems about
weird things like grass, glasses
and corn.
Can write rhyming or non-rhyming
structured or not structured.
Will happily spend hours writing
and work overtime.

For more information, please call,
or send a note by
carrier pigeon.

(chocolate will suffice as payment)

Pretty birdy boy with transparent insect wings
say NO.
Pretty birdy boy with sticky skinny legs
say STOP.
Pretty birdy boy with shiny plastic eyes
say HELP.
Pretty birdy boy with pearly baby teeth
say PLEASE.
Pretty birdy boy with centipede segmented body
say NO.
STOP.
PLEASE.
HELP.
pretty birdy boy sob.
pretty birdy boy cry.
pretty birdy boy scream.
pretty birdy boy ...

laughing laughing i love u laughing
         i’m scared of loving u
                          just joking. u’r scared
                                    i hope u understand
                                         love u
                                                   u
                                             just u wait
                                                      u’ll see
                                                        u fell into her arms
                                                          u’­ll fall into mine
                                     haha i’ll ask u out
                                                     just u wait
                                                            ­  u’r sweet
                                            have i told u that before? ;)
               how many times have i told u?
                                                  i’ll guess u’d say ‘lots’
                                                          ­          u need to loosen up.
                                       just joking. i like u
                                                                      u’r ******* gorgeous
                                        did i forget to tell u?
                                                              ­ well. u are
                                                   sorry. it’s all u’r fault
                                                           ­                u’r not pardoned
                                                      ki­dding yes u are
                                                             ­                u’r sweet
                                                           ­        (yeah u are)
                                                              sorry. it's ur fault i have butterflies
                                              in conclusion: i like u
                                                               ­       (sorry. u can’t avoid me)
                                                             ­             i like u, and
                                                         there’s nothing u can do about it
                           hahaha.
                                                         ­                   laughing laughing laughing.

Soft as snow you lay your body down
and let the rain tattoo pretty patterns all over
your imperfect skin, let it
fill your gaping mouth, and creep like
clear crystal slugs over your nails, exploring all
your forbidden territories and seeping
past your skin. Like a lover,
pitter-patter, the weight of a single word/raindrop
can crease you up.

Pure blue, sleek seal skin you have,
smiling in the sunshine with all the yellow
rays and all the light pink transparent hexagons
sparkling the sky.

Clear as turquoise water stones,
your eyes open and stretch their potential,
lashes all dark and thick and water-splattered.

Softer now you smile. Needles out and
skin soaked in rain and sunshine.

deep we drink while sleeping
slow we slap
long we lap
darling chap
be mine?

please you slow.
now I know
we are so sublime.

long we lie while lying
how we spoke
(I you broke)
in words soak
your heart.

how I cry
how I’ll die?
we have played our parts.

(slow we sleep)
(deep we drink)
we are so sublime

Back in touch with virtual reality,
fingers caress the keyboard
and the screen
(the gentle, intimate touch of lovers),
plugged in the earphones and became
part of the circuit,
electrons zipped into one ear
and were discharged from the other.

Put aside the world for an hour
or two (lost track of time;
it flies when you spend it
with love interests);
drowned self in a smaller /
larger world of blue glowing
screens and perpetual music.
One thousand million songs.
Free. Click. Here. Now.

All you lovely strangers so much
more real than real,
so cool and artistic and how I
wish I could write poetry like you.
How I wish.

Open the door and observe:
the human component of
a full parallel circuit.
Exchange and exchange.
Fixated on a blank screen.
Tapping foot to invisible sound.
Typing faster than would talk.

Close the door.
Walk away.

With long flowered fingers you could explore your head
your very own head
(your very own head)
pry apart the skull with red-painted fingernails
that scrape and scratch your skin
eat out your brain
Eat out your brain

Child of the mountains, reined on
your very own moss, grown in your garden
outside of a crude stone cottage
next to a murky brown creek,
mossbeds surrounded by rounded stones,
all chocolate-ebony and smelling
of earth

that is when you have to pull out
your cultured claws
and eat out your brain.
Your very own brain.

You wish you could paint those talons
and set them on a purse and force
your fat scaly body into a pretty dress
your elongated wide feet into heels
and dance.

But you eat out your brain
Burn the ends of your fingers
no fraying here,
You eat out your brain,
like a slushy, so sticky, so smooth
so stringy.

eat out your brain
(eat out your brain)

blossomblister
burst
(finally)
ate out my sickness
almost turned green.

took too much chlorophyll
(for my health –
i’ve seen the ads)
drank cups and cups
each night and each swallow
chirping pleasantly
made me feel stronger, but
almost turned green.

frustration peaked
almost at snow
but not quite,
couldn’t stand the dangling
piece of peanut butter anymore
had to grab for it
sick of the lack of meaningful
(methought now meknows)
0s and 1s and all
these mouse games,
had to grab for it,
had to scream.
almost turned green.

Too late
to turn back from the flurry
of painted snowflakes
on a gossamer wind.

In a
whirlwind they spin
up and upwards
to the timeless lands.

Frozen
specks of crystal;
perfect and unimaginable
melt on my face.

Shadows
fall and they turn
grey and the painter leaves
his canvas unfinished.

A soft
white sea has emerged
below my feet
and immersed the world in white.

Foamy
to wade through and yet
impossible to resist
spoiling the untouched.

Then sun
arrives, and he brings warmth
and light, and so
the sky’s daughters melt in all
their sweet virginity
and the ground is rendered wet
once more.

just   hands.   just   skin.  just   tissue.   just  atoms.
just kids. just hormones. just chemicals. just atoms.
just mouths.  just  water.  just elements. just atoms.
just        young.       just     exploring.      just    open.
(justatomsjustified)

lettuce forget just for
two hours that we just
met and really you could
be anyone, and lettuce
sustain our teenage
stereotypes, nourish them
with our shared saliva
by the fire -
we are cold and soft
like snow and we are
happy to share our
lizard tongues and lizard brains,
our foolish young
emotions firework in our skulls,
ricocheting against the walls.
sparks.

earlier i watched snow drift down
the chimney,
slowly melt, while ash
was propelled back up
by hot air:
neither sustained for long
in new environments, in foreign
air;
similar up-and-down particles
which i watched while
our hot sweaty hands lay open
like flower petals,
at our sides waiting.
someone had to move
(i did),
petals clasped together and
i noticed the warmth and roughness
of your hands.

i smiled and continued
to watch the flames.

If I sung you to sleep,
what would you dream?
of mystery and madness?
of love and revenge?
of spiralling staircases, culminating
swiftly in a pool
of swirling fear?

Starfish –
sleep slowly,
sleep soundly.
Stretch bubbly limbs that
are kissed by the shore,
hugged by the sea.

This cove
of creeping creatures,
they slip and slime
like a plastic bag
of goldfish.

What will you dream?
of memories:
when you were swept
away from the sea
to dry on the sand
like a limpet?

Bubbling, giggling,
blobbing starfish:
sleeping, sliding,
slipping out of place,
slipping out
of starfish dreams.

you have made your differences.
you have painted your sky blue
(without the undercoat)
you have snuggled up with stars in bed
(knife hidden under the pillow)
and cooed and giggled all cute-like.

now you come home all cold and silver.
you cast me a moon gaze,
nothing more,
and use your words
and your jaunty movements,
like each joint is a mechanical hinge.

i still think you’re beautiful.
no matter how slippery and wet you get
(in the worst and best of ways)
no matter how much your smile stretches
past your teeth and no matter
how many times i want to put my hand
under the pillow. i still think you’re beautiful.

i don’t think you’re perfect
because i have seen your imperfections
the way your dapples fall against the grain
the way you talk and the way your words
are wrong so very often.
but your imperfects make you so much more human,
and so much more beautiful.

if i die tomorrow just know this.
just know that i was sick of your
starlight manipulations and the way you
twisted silver light (all wrong
and reflective).
but despite this, please know
that i very almost fell for you.

They creep me out.
Those sticky-out veins in your neck,
the way they stretch like pythons’ tongues
as if they’re going to snap –
they’ll snap.
Like elastic,
they’ll snap
(just the thought …)

They creep me out,
the fact that they’re so FLESHY
and for some reason,
remind me of goats’ beards
and stringy turkey necks
(I don’t know, but,
just the thought …)

They creep me out.
I’ve got the weird feeling that
they could be snipped away by silver scissors
like loose threads.
They’ll snap.
Like elastic.
They’ll snap.
Stretching,
Stretching
(just the thought …)

Thank you for not writing
about the colour of my eyes,
or the warmth of my skin,
or the softness of my breath
in your ear.

Thank you for not writing
about the curve of my hips,
or the feel of my lips,
or the darkness of my hair
like damp earth.

Thank you for not writing
about the texture of my voice,
or the contours of my hand,
or the mystery of my smile
and my laugh.

Thank you for writing
about the way you fell in love
with my words.
The same happened to me.

(Oh, but I’m a hypocrite
of course).

I searched up the hashtag “winter”
and all I found was misery and cold.
Why?
There is a certain beauty in winter.

Like the cold-snap frozenness
and the way your skin shivers
but your blood is warm.
Like the feeling of being on the edge
of something very, very large,
and very, very old.
Like a mountain.

I hope you appreciate it.
There need not be misery
nor cold.
There’s a certain special beauty
in winter. Say it aloud.

There’s a certain special beauty in winter.

1.
Maybe in twelve years
I could fathom the cause of
miraculous dust

2.
She lifted her hands
to the sky in praise, but all
she received was dust

3.
He fears that one day
he’ll be nothing but dust swept
out from the corners

4.
Some words you could mix
up, and it would be okay –
words like “dusk” and “dust”

5.
They love the dust, they
like to believe that their kids’
future can be held

6.
There was once a bird
who thought that fire was beauty –
until he saw dust

7.
I’ll nourish my sun
flowers, and watch them grow from
a bed of coarse dust

8.
I like to believe
there are dust-cats who keep my
secrets in boxes

9.
You said hi, but you
know your words fell like dead dust
on my wounded ears

10.
When all the dust of
the universe has been found,
cup your hands; receive

11.
If I wrote sonnets
they would be about the world’s
living dust layer

12.
Open your mouth to
the glorious rain, let it
soak away your dust

Writing
about writing
is pathetic,
so instead
I’ll write about that time
in March when we went
hiking along ridgetops and
firetrails, and the sun
baked the rocks hard and impassive
to our boots. The orange-and-white tracks
folded back upon
themselves and seemed
so illogical that we thought
somehow we were going
in circles
(round the Sun we missed
that one it felt like we
weren’t moving)

For lunch you had squished
peanut butter and
sardine sandwiches because
you’re odd and idiosyncratic
like that, and I had apples
and muesli bars because I’m
too lazy to make lunch
at 6 in the morning.
We ate on a huge rock
overlooking trees and Lucy
in the Sky with Diamonds was
playing on the radio.
It felt as if we were two
enclosed in a small
self-erected hazecloud
where birds and lizards
and just breeze mingles
surprisingly well with John Lennon’s
recollections.

I remember the sun-scored rocks
had stored up warmth
from years of Marchdays like
today, they stayed warm slightly
longer than the air did.
We tasted each other’s
post-lunch mouths (you were
sardine and kind of gross)
and pretended like
our hands were ants,
scuttling aimlessly
(we had an aim)

I liked to think my fingers
were all elegant and smooth
as the moon.
I love you and I want
to make you happy here,
I love you and I want you
to make me happy here,
i should sleep – you should sleep –
we should sleep together.

I still remember that Marchday
when we went hiking and I’ve
written about it
dozens of times before in different
modes with other characters
but
to be honest I
don’t want to write about
anything else.

Write your poems about death.
(write ur emo-black-hair
skinny-wrist-white-scar
silent-back-of-classroom
s­ter-e-o-type po-e-try
about death)

Write your overdone morbid
imagery, similes
(write ur unhappy-heart
out-in-ink-onto-paper
arteries-bleeding-out
ur-blue­-and-purple
octopus-veins-ur
ster-e-o-type po-e-try
about death)

last time we made love.
   stagnant heat bitter night,
    the smell of petrol from the highway,
        the old wind out on the balcony,
              our open windows,
our thin white curtains,
    our industrial city,
      our smogged stars.
                               and then –
our fast breathing and oh gosh,
           when you slipped your skull against my mouth
         i swear i could taste the scene:
some romantic technicolour western
     we’d watch in our friend’s garage
                        on their old TV.
                            (years gone past)
your hand against my skeletal
       cheek; our wandering minds;
                    our palm tree resorts,
       our electric hollywood dream;
          the setted sun
               the golden beaches
                       the tangerine taste in my mouth
                            from your love,
           the smell of our skin.

two.

  alone.

i love the taste of
cigarettes in your mouth and
your long musician's fingernails;
     your opposable thumbs your
     clear blue eyes your
     dreadlocks between my fingers your
     smile "you're gorgeous".

the foggy windows of the car &
the dense air between us. i gave you
   hickeys and a *******, and after,
the water you gave me tasted
slightly of energy drink.

you told me to go home,
*******,
go to sleep, because
i wanted to kiss you and kiss
you and kiss you and
remember the taste of your mouth.

Is it you? or the idea of you
that twines it way around my heart
like a dragon.
goddammitstopmessing
with my emotions.

I swear.
I will explode.