this summer we are taking care of ourselves first,
pulling out my eyelashes and blowing them in your face.
the wind picks them up and they fly out the window.
probably
my spine is bruised
from a hard floor,
and a
good time.

Summer rolls around,
and we treat ourselves better.
Full of old heat and dust,
finding jumbled numbers,
lost in our bedroom drawers,
interwoven through our fingers,
that were a year or so too late.

And now accepting the narrative,
that we control,
our own soft, rough hands,
that shape every new day.
Knowing that we deserve better,
than the one before.

a silver string quartet
of silky past lovers,

dancing once again,
in the strangers moonlit garden.

our drunken psychedelic impulses

neon - illuminated in the
service station carpark.

soft feet on our soft earth,
and sinners of ****** deviance,

held in the palm of his hand.

to be a spectacle fire frenzy of
one night stands.

the boots are *****,
from stamping the ground.

the wet sound of
rain-stricken earth.
as if we could pay strangers,
such as our therapists;

whom have their own powerlines.

in the dawn sunrise of my kitchen,
i struck wood.
which bled
and revealed itself bone.
standing in naked shock,
as the stark butter knife,
whom i playfully trusted,
had turned its blade.
had i been right to be surprised?
the nature had never hidden itself,
but had always been blatantly there.

the tantalising thought;
the knife was every love that wilted.
warped around the idea of human-like features to characterised metal,
forgetting that i was the one who held it.

spanked awake,
by the red gloves that
haunt my dreams
and fingers me non consentually,
reducing me to ****** objectivity
that later pushes the used body aside,
only to look distainfully at the blood between my legs.

red gloves,
that permeate stagnanate air,
symbolising hyper femininity.
stains the floor, walls and bathroom stall.

I had hoped death was what had awoken me.
Alas, it was my mother,
standind over my soon-to-be
sleeping corpse.
The bitter disappointment traced
her outline in the dark,
as if I had not called to her
hours before, with my hands
around my throat.

playing dress up in my mothers clothes,
was never meant to be ******
at the age of six.
but it’s as if the vogue shoots in her wardrobe were taunts,
that i was to be punished for
the black high stilettos
after all the red lipstick was
essentially asking for it.

cold hatred spawned from flame
burnt by fire
insensitivity as an insult
strangled in canvas
dead by campfire
reputed commission outlining
passing weekdays.

I haven't picked up a pen in a while,
the thought occurring to me only after my lover asks for soft words.
Choking down a sob of quiet remedies and second hand smoke,
the inhalation fills the mind of a previously empty space,
and its comforting whisper,
curls its tendrils into locks of hair and announces its surprise.

even the keys dangling from your crooked pinky finger,
could not disguise
my fantasy of four months fading away.
as I watched myself; third person,
close the story book of your sick
power play.

i didn't have to raise my head
to know his silhouette
intruded upon my anger
my father insistent
that i am to remain relentlessly unforgiving
in attempts of reversal

but yet  he returned two days later
with my mothers severed leg

missing you ruined everything.

absence of past memory,
bitter dreams,
forcing myself to forget your underwear in my drawer,
and now i cry after i ******.

which feels pathetic.

it is a preferred letter,
or the letters themselves that form a word.
strung together in a disjointment of a sentence.
the combination to a poem,
formed by the necessary conventions,
to create a complex composition,
that
hopefully,
in some way
touches
you.

Death.
For the old,
sick,
and dying.
A token to the end of a life.
Incomprehensible.
It
Is
Reserved.

But Youth,
feeling the overwhelming desire to possess all they see,
grasp at it.
Their hands ageing in a spectacular frenzy.
Youth.
Who understand so little,
sit at the reserved table,
accompanied by frail figures.
And do not need to wait.

Summer was meant to be self-healing,
so I let the thirty-degree heat take it out of me,
like ******* through a straw

unapologetic, unironed skirts.
high waisted midriff baring school girl *****.
heavy eye makeup, caked creases and oily hair.

i have a feeling growing in my stomach,
i feel it kicking,
you gave it life.
with your words.
i think i'm pregnant
with a baby
called
hate.

thanks for driving me to the station.

your son wasn't a mistake.
you didn't say it,
but,
i can read tone too.

i must say, you're quite a conversationalist.

even though the car ride took longer than expected.

binge on crap tv,
occasionally.
to fill the
space-time
CONVERGENCE.

but this isn't
geography,
is it?

Crying,
deep, gutteral, gnarled crying,
ugly and cracked,
broken and chaotic,
forced up by my heart [sense of betrayal],
lodges itself in my throat.

Left so unjustly done,
stood up and abandoned,
because it was hung from a rope and left to rot.

For twenty three hours and forty five minutes.

Taunted.

And yet,
it feels

nothing.

My paper heart can feel Nothing at all.

If you tore it up,
you could consume,
my poetry.
And call it of your own
life.

**** would play in the background of my headache.
So I'm glad you don't think of death like that.

I wonder how many times I have missed you saying "I love you" because I put the phone down

at sixteen
feeling defeated because
mum doesn't want to hear me read her poetry
like a little kid who's
drawing got tossed into
the back drawer and
forgotten about for twelve years

School photo day was a ******.
Maybe it's because my eyeliner was smudged.

Or maybe it's because he's dead.

Thanks for your condolences. I've been getting them every few months or so.

Part 2 (two)

god i'm so sorry

Swimmers.
Groping each other,
intimately,
through the distance of a lane rope.
The lady,
with three children,
touched,
my thigh,
and I brushed past the man,
who's five times my age,
his hands,
soft,
and embracing.
But it's okay.
Because I'm drowning.

If I was to
stare dull and grey
in a broken dismay

would it be easier

to say you love me?

I think the tin roof
will still be warm
when the sun sets
and
the breeze
will be a familiar
memory

the background holds a radio crackle and a distant dogs bark

my telephone screen
prints your name
and the illuminated letters
haunt me
as the aftermath
of your actions

She ***** me with her words
forcing herself on me
through the phone line,

Unable to pull myself
away from the
vindictive *****
called
Isobel Webster

You're not enough,
or so you tell me,
and it's your biggest fear

You're old now,
missing buttons
and cut pockets.
She says you had better days,
but to me you never looked better.

Perhaps,

When the power came back on,

I was a different person.

Because I could see what was in the dark

I fell in love when I was six,

looked straight up into the dark void
and found gravity did not exist,

threw my hands ritualistically to the stars,

to hear their stories

The street light in front of my house did not turn on,
There was a man walking out behind from behind the church,
My hands  stained with the night's illumination,
The air smells of the sea yet there were no waves,
And the chill was colder than usual,
I'm not sure what it was, really

I barely ever cry

Anymore

And I have been so happy

That I don't want to die

The guardian angel on the bus
wears starched white hair and long black coats,
smiles at me,
black lips and choker.
Small reminder of herself.

I always thought
the forest green
on the train to your house
was of such a nice colour.

Moonlight is spilt,
across my pillowcase.
And the darkened blue purple sky,
asks to be forgiven,
in the outlines of
my reminiscence
of which
it is
not.

A faint living memory,
like the pressed yellow flower,
on the sun dais

I have lost my words
in accordance to my mind,
and writing with my left hand
was always a talent of mine

First acquaintances
made the distance
between us
seem not so that way,
to  allow the belief of a mermaid
gave the life of Santa away.

I still believe you

I could be anyone,
preferably no one,
and yet I am still
waiting upon my
dawn faint awakening
in look for
a glass of water

I like awkwardness.
It creates a silence
that is used
in the purpose of thinking.