They say that love is blind
The truth is just, love is pure.
She is patient, she is kind,
She’s unrefined and yet, demure.

Through her looking glass she sees
Spots of flaws and marks of pain
Why do you cry so much, darling?
How can I never make you feel that way again?

Love should know that beauty fades,
She should know that looks are weak
But love cannot be easily stuck in place
Not all who claim to find can truly seek.

Are you the measure of the man?
So wonderful in writing
But is your face too faithless
Shockingly unbeguiling.

Is love so shallow that she can’t see
How you give her the world?
But is it her prerogative to be
After those who make the heart twirl?

Will love be another one with a seven
With plenty of zeros to his name?
How does her nature suffer
When it is love you seek to tame?

There I was in my almost clinical white coat
Looking like Yoko Ono, oh no, didn't realise it at all.
Strolling all around the front square,
You in that tan coat stood there,
Looking like something out of  Harry Potter, I presume.
I'd clocked you at the protest a year before,
And you fell for me that first day,
Early September, leaves not yet falling
Me eating an apple a day.
It was the last fruit of summer,
I was still in love with someone else
And as summer became autumn, and is now becoming winter,
I honest to god can't tell.
I can't help myself.
I can't help myself.

You in our second meeting- but the first 'meeting'-
Acting like my very existence was bad for your health,
All this merging and converging like its two countries joining together,
I knew that you liked me, in ways you've liked me forever.
But I wanted to make him come back to me, wished on a spirit
To take him back to me, wished for the truth and- what did I see?
The last fruit of summer, an apple tree.

I was so nervous, I bit my lip so hard it bled,
I come from the Hughes', I lie then, instead.
Your red filaments, burning, yearning, twisting, turning,
Kissing me and hugging me like you've never wanted to hold onto a thing so tight.
I feel like a wild horse penned in, flying by night.
Because I know that you're mad about me
Honest to god I wish I was too,
But I don't understand what stops me from letting go and loving you.

It was the last fruit of summer,
The final kiss from the earth,
I wore all black, you in florals
Me not knowing my worth.
I want to take it slow, and you agree,
You'd agree to anything I want because it's me.
You and your artistic set, fashion-obsessed,
Everything I could ever want, everything you could ever spend.
But nothing that I really do want, in the end.
And I ask for the truth, to the apple tree,
I tell them- oh god- is this ruining me?
I cut it and eat it piece by little piece,
'I can't help you, darling, so just sit back and eat.'

And it’s only in those silent moments I feel sad.
I spend my days keeping busy,
I tell them all I am actually doing surprisingly well.
Because I actually feel like I am, it’s not just something I’m saying to say.

I grieved.
You were gone for, like, three days before you appeared to tell me it’s over.
So it felt as if you’d already done it.
Like a missing person’s body finally being found,
Like a crash towards the inevitable, that wave of just knowing.

He is never coming back.

But in the daylight I’m okay.
No one has to know my feelings on the subject,
You don’t even exist to them.  
It’s only when I’m in bed and the music stops that I realise the gaping hole in my world.

The faces of men I turned down for you,
The things I would’ve said, the plans I could’ve made,
How close I was to finally feeling safe.

But like every man before you,
And probably many more to come,
Safety is never an option.
Security is someone you call to get people out.
Home is a place where I build the walls, I decide who gets the password to come inside.

But I don’t want an audience anymore.

No one gets to see me.
Why should I let anyone see behind the mask of the Great and Powerful Oz?
What do I get in return?
No home, no heart, no courage for finally speaking up, no.
Just a slap in the face that feels like ice water.

So I sit here in silence, avoiding what has to be done and I cry and I cry until nothing comes out but a squeak.
This weak creature finally speaks:
‘You used to make me melt but now I’m melting.’

Oh, what a world,
What a world.

Yours is the face in the crowd
I want to see.
Yours is the name that I hear
And I always speak.
Yours is the sound on the wind
The missing breath in between
Mine is the serious thing
I know you’re missing me.

Yours is the song of the south
Of east, north and west too.
Yours is the message I see
But forgo replying to.
Yours is the chart that I read
Yours is the name I wail out with dread
When I’m alone sobbing in my bed
Full of the missing in between instead.

Yours is the face in the crowd
I’d rather meet.
Yours is the name that brings pain
The bittersweet.
Yours is the watery depth
Mine is the fire that leaves you bereft
And I know that I’m still a Queen
But there’s too much in between.

I still can’t find the words
Because, perhaps, a part of me feels
That you’ll look at me like I have ten heads
If I say how I cannot heal.

Perhaps I don’t want to heal at all,
Now I am a vulnerable, scorned thing.
The looks of realisation passing over their faces
As I tell my sorry story, my frightening fabula.

The tale of poppies and lilies and
The coldest winter I have ever known.
I was skin and bone with a ******* coat
And I didn’t like who it was that I was.

The tale of glassy eyes and cold ones
And throwing yourself at me
The tale of black and white pudding
Of Brett Ashley and Daisy Buchanan
Of ostentatiousness unrivalled.

I still can’t find the words
I’m angry, sad, tearful in public alone
Confused and bewildered.
Is that how you love someone?
Or claim that you do?

Is that the ‘nice thing’ you’re holding back?
Is that the swivelling chair or the casting couch?
Is that why I cannot seem to get over it?
Not over you, it.

And you say you weren’t well at the time.
I supposed we were both stuck clinging to each other
To broken to move away, to scared to be alone.
But no, this isn’t an excuse.

I still can’t put it into words
How profoundly odd I feel these days
You didn’t hurt me but you hurt me
And all I can see if your smirking face.
‘Calm down, you’re gorgeous.’

Oh, I could hate a hurt like that.
My sorry story, fantastic fabulam
Is it too posh if I speak outside English?
Why do you care? You knew who I was.
You know who I am.
You know.

And I’ll bet you also can’t find the words
So you hide behind cheap drinks and albums
And everything scummy because you despise who it is that you are.
Hoi polloi, the common man.
Whatever ‘common people do.’

I still can’t put it into words
And I don’t want to.
It’s too complex and I don’t have the energy to tell a story
To tell the world of the war I won
The hollow victory, the end of our empire.
Red lips, red boots, silver shoes.
Go to sleep, it’s over now.

I sit in the cold air on New Year’s Day
Oíche Shamhna or so they say.
I wait and wait for a strange delay
Witch’s brew or so they say.

I wish that I could sleep so tight
So soundly like you seem to do
When you say the soft ‘night night’
As if your conscience is clear and true.

I shiver in the air this day
It’s New Years now, or so they say.
My resolution was to change
And bury all the old timed hate.

To forget, forgive and start anew
To resolute with witch’s brew.
To toast the past and future too
To somehow live on without you.

I wait inside the freezing cell
All for the ringing of the bell
You made my life akin to hell
And from that low I found myself.

I sit in the cold on New Year’s Day
Allerheiligen as they say.
I live for getting through today
For I know you have hell to pay.

With you and everything I’ve seen
I can’t trust the moon on Halloween.
With you and everything I know
You’ll have what you want and then you’ll go.
With you and everything we’ve learned
All the minus points you’ve earned
All the witches that have burned
I have a right to be concerned.

I sit in the cold air on New Year’s Day
Oíche Shamhna or so they say.
I wait and wait for a strange delay
I wonder what form I will take.

Coffee in hand, she sits on a train
She smells a little like cinnamon and sage.
She hears a voice, her heart in her mouth
It isn’t him, as she fears. Absolutely no doubt.
Amongst the loud hum, she can spy at herself
So sad, so defeated, she’s like no one else.
Tears spring to her eyes as she looks at her screen
She’d been too busy living a Hemingway dream.
She won’t call him again, as he doesn’t care
She won’t let him in when he’s not really there.
She won’t be his last and she wasn’t the first
She isn’t the only girl to get hurt.
So coffee in hand, she’s no longer forlorn
For hell hath no fury like a good woman scorned.