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.

It’s not yet ten
And a man who loves himself more than a thing should love at all
Plays on my screen.

A song I know and could sing.

I watch it silently, I watch
Other’s silent moving pictures
The smile with a tongue out
And the new year’s kiss.

A song I know and could sing.

These are the regular people
And I am never one of them.
It’s only in humbling, stumbling
Unashamedly human moments
That I feel at one with the universe-
And all the regular people.

The people who count down and drink too much
And kiss on the lips without intention
And who put their hands near their beloved
For a little bit of attention.

The people who complain that it’s nothing or something scary
That we should joke about to hide our feelings on the matter
The people who call you or text you whose names you might wish to forget.

A song I know and can sing.

Happy New Year.

Is he scared of me?
I'm scared of me.

I have a tongue of acid,
Heart of glass,
Cut like a knife,
Fragile as ash.
All of the wonder of Midsummer's walks,
All of the nightmare of 'what are we?' talks.
Complex as the cosmos,
Bright as a bean,
Sometimes I am someone
You wish you'd never seen.

So, is he scared of me?
Why do you ask?
There must be much scarier
Under his mask.

I don't know why I always do this.
I am never just 'satisfied' with waiting, I guess.
Maybe, I do this kind of thing because I'm sad.
Maybe because I am lonely.
Maybe because I hurt so much and I want to feel so much more
But I always end up more hurt in the end than I was before.

I made myself a self-fulfilling prophecy
But I put my faith in the wrong person
And I lost you.
Now that I'm stuck waiting,
I feel the weirdest pain
I'm not content with anything at all.
Maybe because I hurt so much and I want to feel so much more
But I always end up more hurt in the end than I was before.

I don't know why I do this.

I do so well without you
Then you come back again
I say that I am fine
I sit and play pretend.
I go off to parties
I try to flirt with men
I do so well without you
That it’s hard not to pretend.
And, silly me, I loved you
And, silly me, I care
For you and all around you
But love is never fair.
I do so well without you
Then back you come around
I see you in the distance
You look for common ground.
I say I want to see you
I say I want to call
I sit alone and wonder
If I was anything at all?
And, silly me, I loved you
I thought I meant the world
To me, you were my everything
But I was not your girl.
I do so well without you
So very, very well.
Until you say hello again
And I’m under your spell.
And, silly me, I talk to you
I often bare my soul
And, silly me, I love you
But you don’t deserve to know.

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.'

What is this dull ache I feel where my heart lies?
What are these tears doing tumbling out of my eyes?
What have I done to feel this way?
What have I lost? What did you say?

What is this struggle I feel when I breathe?
What is that anger doing boiling in me?
What made me do this to myself again?
What do I do? What is a 'friend'?

How do I come back from this?
This absolute brink of loneliness.
How did I let myself get attached?
Its easy to see it's not a good match.
How on earth can the earth not shake?
How do we survive heartbreak?

I sit here.
I fall prey to your charms, harms and weaknesses.
I see you in my mind with glasses, Onassis.
Your brother flying across the Atlantic
And you are Atlas holding the world up.
I feel the old pang.
I fall prey- that’s me, Persephone.
I’ve had my time in Tartarus
And you were my Spring. My Astonishing Adonis,
Sunglasses, Onassis. All second chances.
The night I met a Greek hero disguised as a man
Who turned out to be a man disguised as a Greek hero.
And I miss you, as you go off.
I’m not Persephone, I’m Penelope.
I was unsure I’d wait for you
And now I don’t want to.
But still, part of me does.
Everyone is like a Greek god in some ways.
I’ve had my fun with Apollo and Hades and Zeus-
Who I’m still holding out for. But aren’t we all?
And you, born on the same day as my Pallas.
My palace in the future, my ramshackled past.
You know a surface, you weren’t meant to stay in my world.
And I prayed and prayed to let you stay.
But as always it was up in the air.
So I sit there.
I fall prey to your harms, charms and weaknesses.
Mine is weak ankles, yours is your weak spine.
And I wonder,
Did love ever make you blind?

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.