Hit after hit
head under water (inebriated)
unable to swim,
I choked,
unsure if by God's hands or my own.
But by God I swallowed it all
then begged for more.

I sank until my feet hit the bottom
stirring the sand around my legs
then upwards.
The ocean floor obscured,
my vision obstructed.
Desperately I swiped
in vain,
and swiped again,
but still the obstruction remained.
And God laughed
and I choked
either by God's hands or mine,
by miracle or design.
Am I Him
or Him me?

Seething with questions
sung and unheard,
then yelled and ignored,
I finally lay myself to rest.
A deep sigh escaping my breast,
I surrendered to rest.

Sleep overcame me
and I dreamt of pearls,
that one day this heaviness
would give birth to pearls.
But alas I awaken
and in my night terror
I had stirred the sand again.
I do not remember.
God let me remember.

I dream of pearls
and of pearls I dream.
Yet still am I to awaken
to this dream.
The sand begins to settle
but the hand stirs again,
never lain to rest,
the obstruction remains.

Sometimes I see glimmers,
gleams and glistens
of the pearls I've only
seen in my dreams.
And by God's hands they gleam
as they always did.
But my hands became rough
from the sand that stirs
and I fear to ever touch,
a pearl,
to ensure that I never
grind her back to sand.
For God shall laugh
and I shall choke.

"Stay sleeping, little one.
Dream of pearl,"
He said.
And deliver He did
oblivion and pearls.

If the shadow of a loss remains,
is it really desolate?
Where the mind fills the emptiness of a desire,
does it exonerate?
"Things can be two things."
Riddled with crypticism,
in vain,
I entertained
an eagerness to negate.
Then in both his absence
and absent presence
I finally conceived how right
he was (is)
all along.

See the man
Adorned in black?
My home,
    is there.

Smile,
A white picket fence.
My place,
    my home of rest.

Somewhere
Afar.
My home
    I sought.

Silver linings,
Adversities,
My home
    I found

Surrender, I did,
At a gaze.
My heart, I tried.
    Believe me I tried...

"Sieze! Raid!"
Ablaze the home!"
My heart, no,
    one needs a home.

"Surrender!
Any will do!"
My heart, no,
    home is You.

"See that man?
Adore him you do."
My heart, it spoke
    of home and you.

Somehow,
An absurd world,
My heart
    a compass to you.

So like that,
A home became
My love,
    my love, a home.

Day 4:
Full glass
empty glass.
Another full glass
another empty glass.
Where is he tonight?
wash rinse repeat
wash rinse repeat
wash rinse
repeat.

Month 5:
Plead sobriety
f--- sobriety.
A happy dance. (drink)
Thou shall not drink!
Thou shall not dance!
Thou should like to dance.
(drink)
Glass, help me dance.

Month 11:
Waste away
waist away. Another
full glass no food.
Another empty glass no
food.
(Naltrexone)
wash rinse repeat wash
rinse repeat dance
drink
   repeat.

Month _ :
One shot.
Four shot.
(You're alone tonight.
I'm with you tonight.)
Six shot.
Nine shot.
(I'm with you tonight.
You’re alone tonight.)
Bathroom floor tonight.

Day 1:
Sober tonight
f--- tonight.
tremor purge
repeat sweat
tremor repeat.
(You're alone
tonight. You're alone
tonight.)
I’m alone tonight.
wash rinse…

Day 365:
Clean.

I danced
under savage flame
and the sound
of wood splitting.
I could not see
that I burned down the house
until the moon set
and I stood cold
amidst charcoal
that crumbled
in my palms.

The books we read,
vinyls we spun,
letters we wrote,
clung to my skin
like a crime scene.

He was blackened too -
watching from afar
as I danced
and sowed gasoline
over everything
he loved.

He was blackened too -
and crumbling
within my palms.
Waiting from afar
for the last ember
to die.

I burned down the house.
Again.

But he picked me up
and carried me
to our bed.
Scorched -
where we cried in agony
at a whisper
across our skin.

Every sunrise
we're washing the charcoal
from the sheets
and purging cinder
from our lungs.
Planting seeds
where foliage
was lost.

We wait now
for the day
the flames in our eyes
become another Polaroid.
For the day
we can laugh
at how I burned down the house,
and finally saw
the mxthxrfxckxr crumble.

Yet still,
he doesn't
break.

Time moved through me
forgetting to carry me
with her.

And I waited.

Like the businessman
at Flinders Street Station
- stagnant -
while the world passed him by,
and time moved through him,
in fast motion;
forgetting to whisper past
his cheek
and sweep the petals
from his eyes.

For he carries a garden inside,
but all gardens
need time.

I've never been fond
of the colour red.
I found it loud,
inexhaustible.
Arrogant.
I felt small around red,
an anger
that I was neither loud,
inexhaustible,
nor arrogant.

I found a home
in grey
and they called me
the grey woman,
equal parts white,
and black.
Neither here,
nor there.
Quiet,
passive,
contemplative.

How does
a grey woman
navigate a world
built for red men?

I met a man,
who was a fan
of Pink Floyd
who reminded me
that pure white
is a rainbow
and from then
I no longer saw grey
as equal parts
white and black.

Now I paint
my nails red
and lay down beside
that Pink Floyd man
every night.

He reminds me of red.
That's why I like him.

The generation
of more self-help bestsellers
than people willing
to self-help themselves,
but will Google-search
"how to stop self sabotaging"
after a friend of a friend
tagged another friend
in a Facebook article,
once.

We pay some expensive *******
with a piece of paper
in a frame
to tell us
what we already know,
but your mental health
is a good investment,
right?

It's nice to believe
that humans can be
akin to the übermensch,
and such supremacy
can be achieved
with therapy,
with healing,
with pretty little pills.

It's easier to accept
we are jaded,
than admit
we were born to be
our own devil.

Just watch
as Mother Nature devours
her own children
by flame,
and maybe we'll begin to see
that we were created
to die a hundred times over
at the end of
our own hands.

A cloud never
entertains
the same shape
from point a
to point b.

And if they did
would we even
bother to lie
in the grass
anymore?

There's a reason
many of the best
thinkers in history
took off into nature
often.

She never forgets
what humanity
has long ago
forgotten.

We would not
tape leaves
to a tree
to stop her
leaves from
falling.

Or barricade
the ocean
to stop
her ride
from rising.

Or push
the sky
to prevent
a storm.

But we do it
to ourselves
and each other
every day.

My car
had been
drizzled
in honey
coloured
leaves
during the
night.

My son
and I
made a
spectacle
of how
the gold
fluttered
off into
the wind,
like a
hundred
monarch
butterflies
through
grey
streets.

I tilt
the rear
view mirror,
waiting for
lights to
change.

His soft,
buttery face
reflected
back at
me.

I wonder
how it's
possible
that such
a small
person
has the
power
to halt
the sand
through an
hourglass,
to awaken
sunflowers
by the
moon,
to derive
nectar
from a
stone.

What other
name
is there
for a
person
of such
power
than that
of a bird
which
arises
from its
own
ashes.

"You're a good mummy,"
he told me
"you give me food
every night."

I thanked him,
told him how happy
his words made me,
but I began to cry.

Images of mothers,
some place else,
somewhere I am not,
flooded me.

Images of mothers
whose children
cry out in hunger.

Images of mothers
who hold their children close
because they have
nothing else to give.

I don't know how it feels
to tell a child
they cannot eat
for a third day
in a row.

I don't know how it feels
to watch as your child's ribcage
becomes more defined.

I don't know how it feels
to be truly helpless.

I cry,
for the image of mothers
whose tears remain unheard.

That maybe someone
might hear me
and ask why.

I buried
my roots
in new-age
spirituality.

It nourished me
with words
like water,
soil
sunshine
and promised
a harvest.

They say
the hand
that points
to the moon,
is not
the moon
and I was thirsty.

My entitlement
told me
I should not
be humbled
by a glass
of water
when what
I desire
is a
spring.

Well the spring
never came
and my
cup became
just another
empty glass.

Now I've
stepped off
my hedonic
treadmill.

My frail
body was
not designed
to withstand
the aches
of running.

I'm a
tall woman,
albeit small.

I was built
to see
the little things
from great heights.

And so it became
my glass of water
turned to wine.

We threw a mattress
in the back of my car.
Some clothes.
Some food.

I packed eight books.
He packed a skateboard.

We drove along
the freeway
behind a car
the same as my mother's.

I thought about when she left
and all the tears I know she cried
driving away,
northward bound.

She drove for five days.
That's a lot of tears
and math
I can't do.

The driver had the same tanned skin
my mother has now,
and sun-bleached caramel hair
I imagine she would have too
had she not preferred
the taste of licorice.

I've been reading
the subtle art
of not giving a ****
and too many a-*****
I've given
about her leaving.

Let me record
the last **** given
in poetry
and move on.

So my love and I
drove on,
together.

We're best together.

My father always told my sister and I
not to bite the hand that feeds.
But I look down at my hands
and see scars where my own teeth
have drawn blood.

hap*
/hap/

noun
1. luck; fortune

verb
1. come about by chance

And it hit me,
by happenstance,
that perhaps,
per-chance
I'd been
wrong.

Wrong in believing
a happiness
was owed
to people
and would
flow to me
not by happenstance
but by choice.

By choice
and by choosing
the right path.
But the path
of choice
and of choosing
the one
that is right
is a very wrong
and anxious
path
indeed.

And indeed
I am
the anxious type
from years
of fears
that by
trusting choice
over happenstance
I'd choose
wrong.

But I didn't
choose wrong.
Nor did I
choose right.
I chose
not to choose
at all.

I'm also
the sad type.
And now
I worry
that by
definition of
hap
and thus
of happiness
I'm not sad
by happenstance
but of
choice.

I envy her.
I'd write that
she changes lovers
as often as her clothes,
but I've seen her
hold on to clothes
much longer.

I envy her.
She knows love
straight out of
a Vogue editorial.
The kind where models
wear only jeans
and ****** each other
with their polished,
photoshopped beauty
and ****** eyes.

Then you see
the same models
somewhere else,
seducing some other model,
and wonder
how their brains
can keep up
the oxytocin
demand.

I envy her.

My lover and I,
we're full of holes,
like my father's
light blue Levi's
from the eighties.

I don't envy her.
We're full of holes,
my love and I,
but full of patches
because a good pair of jeans
are worth mending
when they fit you
like a glove.

We sat
on the edge
of the kitchen bench,
like most evenings
and shared stories
from our days.

My love,
his eyes
a mirror
for his weary mind.

It's only Monday
he says
watching
Kenny dance
inside a glass.

**** Kenny.
He's no good.

Why are you so sad?
he asks.
I smile and say
because I'm me!
and throw my arms to the sky
like my own personal curtain call.

He sips from his glass,
no longer dancing
and replies
that's a much simpler answer.

I leap from the bench
and embrace him,
cradle his head
to my cold
and bony
shoulder.

I feel closest to him
in moments,
when he finally
allows me
to see
him
c r a c k

He told me once
that my sadness makes me selfish.
Well I think his lack of sadness
makes him so.

I imagine
how much closer
we could be.

Just him and I,
without his stupid,
******* facade.

Break!
You *******,
break!
Crumble into a hundred
tiny pieces.

Learn how
you can be more beautiful
for being broken.
Don't you think I'm beautiful?
Baby,
I'm a mosaic,
a ******* art form.

Kintsukuroi.

I'll be nothing but gold
one day.

Half way up the hills
and eclectic group gather
at a narrow bar.

Leather jackets
occupy seats
by the door.

We sit
for a cigarette length of time
(cigarette length of time =
   1 x 10 minutes
            + ≥ 10 minutes before
                   and/or after cigarette)
and walk
the dimly lit corridor
to the bar.

We sit
at a table for two
against a wall.

The band plays fiercely.
I've seen them before.

Their moxie
always brings
a rowdy crowd.

Behind them
apple crates
cling to the wall,
housing quirky decor.
Books, globes and vintage cameras.

A projector casts
lollipop swirls
and a singing silhouette.

Drink specials:
tequila mockingbird

I spoke to a Serbian girl I know.
She always wears glitter
and hazy eyes.
The more questions
I ask her
the longer I can listen
to her accent.

We spoke about the age old
nature vs nurture enigma,
and the life long impact
of a child's first six years.

She asked me
about my art.

It seems
that's all anyone
knows me for.

Outside, again, we sit.
For 5 x cigarette length of time.

Around me
people talk...
                 and talk.....
                               talk....
                                       ta...
                                             l...
                                                 k.

I'm sober.
Too **** sober.

My daydreams are broken
by a man.
He's bubbly and smiles a lot.
I like bubbly, smiley strangers.

We exchange stories
of our current lives.
He's a graphic designer,
and tells me
I should merge my art
and writing
into film,
and gifts me a flashlight.

I like quirky, bubbly, smiley strangers.

I'm left to retreat
back into my own thoughts.
It's less lonely in there.

I sort through memories,
recite lyrics,
observe the people around me
and watch them closely.
Their body language,
the way they bring
their glass to their mouth
and blow their smoke.

People interest me most
doing nothing in particular.

But I miss something,
and I can't quite pinpoint what.

I'm sober.
             Too.
                 ****.
                         Sober.

A life model
stands bare at the core
of an easel mantle.
She wears her skin
like a flattering summer dress
and I wonder
if she even knows
she's naked.

I transfer her body
to paper
in a hundred charcoal swirls,
suspended evermore
in a breath of smoke.
My teacher says
my style suits me,
and I suspect he's right.

They're alive,
and full of vitality
he tells me,
comparing them to my other,
more refined drawings
and I feel myself
wanting to cry.

I try
to refine my life,
and myself,
as I do my models.
To be contoured
and controlled.
To be precise
and safe
as geometry.

I unfold beneath the frustration
of my clumsy form.

My hands cannot obey
to a command
my heart does not give.

But my heart commands acceptance,
and who am I to deny?
So I must abide,
and learn
to wear my messy heart
like a flattering summer dress
rippling in winters gale.

Sewing buttercups
into a storm.

i watch
as little things
become big things.

little things
others might discard.

tiny hands
place wooden eggs
inside empty play dough cups
all in a row.
mummy which ice cream you like?
I smile before answering,
the flower and vitamin c one please
okay good he says.
i place a beeswax crayon
inside tiny hands
in exchange for
my ice cream.

i watch
as he drops
tiny, special things
inside a tiny bag.
a very hungry caterpillar bag.

a wooden tool,
a waterlemon jigsaw piece,
tiny plastic spoon
and empty tic tac boxes.
so many tic tac boxes.

i regret that
i am an impatient woman
and some days forget the beauty
in these little things.

i watch
as he takes sweet breaths
with eyes closed,
through cupid bow lips.
i am reminded
these are not the little things,
but the big things.

if there was one thing,
one big thing,
i could bless him with,
it would be that
he may never
lose his eye
for life's little things
too long.

Sunlight pirouettes
through a window.

Translucent zebras
dance upon the stage,
dance across
a little honey bee.

Petals of paper
weaving through
the day.
Like tiny footprints
to lead the way.

Lead a zebra,
lead a honey bee,
to a delicate daisy flower
where they might sit
in silence
or discuss
how peculiar it is
that a honey bee
just might fall
in love with a zebra.

The leaves will soon turn
shades of auburn
for the twenty fourth time
in my life.
Darkness descends earlier now
than it did only a week ago.
I understand autumn
but I do not find comfort in that.
Some days you can feel her
clinging desperately
to the warmth of the sun
but she was not granted
that power.

The days roll on
and slowly her grip is gone.
Death prevails through the lands
planting frost where life once grew.
The birds don't quite sing like they used to.

But earth read the book of living
and knows when the magnolias must bloom.
I sit with her, my mother earth,
in hope she will one day
impart me her wisdom.
For I cling desperately to the sunshine
when I am blessed its presence,
but I too was not granted that power.
I know no winter,
only the storms of Jupiter
and I fear one day he will take me
before I learn
when my magnolias must bloom.

Satin ribbons
streaming thighs
seedless apple womb.

Fire of womanhood
birthing passion
burning lust.

Cherry stained lips
making love
to velvet glasses.

***** eyes
siren for Mars
tumid ***.

Blooming roses
slippery as silk
sigh in red.

My Saturdays belong
to a quaint Parisian cafe.
I only have to think about carrying coffees
and baguettes
and they pay me for it.
It's the cheapest therapy I've had.

I've come to know some of the regulars.
Some days I wish
to tell them I love them
and I don't quite know why.
I suspect they remind me
in some part of myself,
or how I wish to be.

An almost elderly lady
always comes alone.
Her hair still retains some of her blonde youth.
She orders two very weak flat whites
and sits for hours,
writing letters to distant loves
and reads the paper.
I clear her cup
and she smiles
with both her lips and her eyes.
She makes you feel like your job
means something more than it probably does.
I bring her a second coffee,
a very weak flat white.

In the afternoons
a couple comes in for coffee.
She is quiet,
the artistic type,
and wears their son in a sling.
A sweet little thing with cherubic cheeks.
The father is a darling man
with a softness many men resist.
I watch the way his eyes sparkle
when he tells me of his sons milestones.
I make an effort to see them smile,
bring them water on hot days
or just talk.
But sometimes I leave them be,
watch them from a far,
and let myself be swept up in their love,
before they leave.

My Saturdays belong
to a quaint French cafe
with dark timber floors
and French antiques.
I haven't quite mastered the art of conversation
but I'm adept in the science of smiling
and that's enough to get me by
for now.

Most mornings we awaken
by the call of your alarm.
You groan, rub your face,
and get ready for work.
I cuddle my son a while longer.

Occasionally you'll hit snooze
over and over.
You don't mind being late.
The touch of your hands
grazes my skin and caress my *******.
We curl together
and slip slowly into the morning.

Every so often
you'll spring out of bed like a hurricane.
A missed alarm.
You curse my son
for keeping you up all night
and hasten to your car.

Every morning
I'll splash cold water on my face
while coffee brews in the kitchen.
I stir two spoons of sugar,
and look to the basil on the windowsill.
She's happy as long as I water her.
I wish I was that simple.

Somewhere between not yet and no longer.
Do you know it?
You can find me there.
Sit, please, tell me how you hurt.
Share with me all the thoughts that keep you up at night,
and indulge me in the little quirks you've mastered
to fill that space between not yet and no longer.
I have cigarettes and all the time in between.

I believe some people were born to be lonely,
and I'm believing more and more we were born to be seen,
and not understood.
But I don't want to be seen or understood.
One is too humble,
the other too grandiose.
I long for some place in between -
I long to be heard.
What an incredibly lonely place that is.

I know not how to remedy the gaps
between two opposing chemicals.
Too happy.
Too sad.
Too alone.
Too needy.
The cycle goes on and carries me from here to there,
too quickly,
or too slowly.
I just do what I'm told and take my pill.
'ONE at night'
and self medicate with caffeine and nicotine in between.

Now I smoke more than I ever have.
I don't know if I'm trying to fill a space
or **** something inside of me.
Either way it passes the time between now and finding out,
between not yet
and no longer.

My body burned
- a fire I'd never known.
The pools in my eyes
commanded me to swim,
my heart wished to lay down
beside him,
but instead I just drove.

Headlines that read
Missing Man From Mt Martha
circulated for days.

She told me he'd often spoke of running away,
and her love for him clung fiercely to the fairytale
in vain.
Perhaps we should have known better,
but the tales fooled us.
Prince Charming will save the maiden
but who is going to save him?

The floors caught me
as I collapsed under
the weight of a phone call.

They found him
in romantic slumber
among the forest -
a tree and his throat
playing tug of war
with a length of rope.
It's hard to say
who really won.

The chaple was too small
to cradle all who loved him.
Red work shirts lined the doorway
like poppies.
Friends wore top hats
embellished with ribbons
and sunflowers.
Sisters consoled their grief
in suits and coloured bow ties.
An old music teacher played a violin,
so haunting and beautiful.

I've never known grief.
Memories of his smile
and hazy nights in his car
have seen my every sunrise since.
I see him in strangers
and passers by on the street
and my heart stops
in these fleeting moments
of illusion.
Resuscitated by reality,
they're gone as quickly
as they came.

I often think I should visit his grave,
place a flower on his tombstone
or just have a conversation.
I regret that only after he'd died
I realised
we might have understood each other
better than we knew.

Contentment?
Who needs contentment.
Let's burn this fxckxng house down
so our skin swelts from the heat
and our egos can cry for our lost possessions.
Who am I without my Things?
Who is Sisyphus without his boulder?
A man now content with only himself?
Gxddxmn Absurdism.

I'm easy to fall in love with.
(I shouldn't be)
I'm not easy to love.
(My God I wish I was)

I'm the kind of lover
that will waltz the streets at 2 a.m
just to see you.
The kind of lover
that will write you poetry
from across the seas.
The kind of lover
that sheds a tear
as my fingertips graze your skin.
I'm the kind of lover
that loves fiercely.
I'm the kind of lover
that hates ferociously.

I'm the kind of lover
that will pour fuel on your jealously
to feel the heat of your love.
The kind of lover
that can turn to ice
and freeze your heart with one touch.  
The kind of lover
that at any instant
can become no lover at all.

I'm the kind of lover
you don't want to love.
I'll elate you and destroy you.
I'll give you the stars
and make you watch as they collapse.
I'll gift you roses
and watch the thorns bleed you.

I'm the kind of lover
you love to love.
I'll drive a thousand miles away
and walk back home to you.
I'll burn every poem I wrote you
and hand write every one again.
I'll push you down
and bear the sky to stand you up.
I'll destroy you and rebirth you.

I'm not easy to love,
and my God I wish I was.
One day, I know, I will be.
My psychiatrist said so.
Just you wait.
I promise,
I'm worth the wait.

My words cannot write you
the way I wish they could.
I can write about the day we met.
I can tell you about the cold Winter afternoon you met a young mother and her son in the park,
and how you endured the brisk winds for hours just to see me in the flesh.
I can describe the green plaid jacket you wore,
hoping it would keep your bones from chilling.
I know it didn't.
You're a Summer man,
and I can write about that.

I can retell our memories,
paint idyllic pictures of beach weekends.
Our skin glistening from the heat,
wind pouring through the windows of your car that's as old as you,
hoping it would keep us cool.
It didn't.
That Summer you taught my son how to love the water,
only to have the fear return threefold a year later.
I could write about that in two words: you're persistent.

My words can retell every fight we've ever had,
breathe life back into the 'he said she said' of our history.
We've apologised (mostly me)
and we've forgiven (mostly you).
With my words I've already told of your persistence.
Words are beautiful like that.
And I've birthed beauty through them,
but I've also bred sorrow.
This I know through your words,
but mostly from the things that speak louder than any combination of letters ever could.
Your expression.
Your tears.
Your silence.
Sometimes silence is too loud to bear.

I can write in vain about you,
and I do,
more often than I'll admit.
Hoping for redemption, maybe,
or justification.
Long words only convolute a story further.

But I can't write about you
the way I wish I could.
There are no words.
No words for your smile.
No words for your laugh.
No words for your quirks or your sense of humour.
No words for your flaws and imperfections.
I can write in vain about all the things that make up You,
but there's no words for love.
I'll keep trying though,
and I do.
More often than I'll admit.

Red pill.                           Blue pill.

               Both look pink
    under rose-tinted glasses

20/5/16

Desires are a tricky thing. They never stop expanding.
I remember the times I would daydream endlessly about having what I have now, and when you think of it like that, being so caught up in future desires so that you are unable to appreciate what’s right in front of you seems a very big waste of life. For what is the purpose of desires if you cannot appreciate their fruition?
Desires will always lead to the birth of new desires, but to learn to relish in the present abundance while manifesting the future is key, and will bring forth the utmost gratitude, and thus happiness.

I remember the summer holidays.
The heat intense without air conditioning.
Our days passed by on that old swing set,
weather beaten to a faded green.
We’d build houses out of boxes
our mother would never let us take home.
My sister called your home “the fun house”.
I would say “plastic fantastic”.
We’d build vintage dirt bikes in the garage,
eat apple pies for dessert,
and fall asleep beneath the peach tree.

I remember the escape,
when home was too violent.
You once told me you stopped drinking
so you could always be there when we needed you.
And you were.
To distract.
To listen.
To protect.

I remember the way you cradled me that night
as blood flowed from my wounds,
and the way you sat beside me in the hospital for hours
and never complained.
To distract.
To listen.
To understand.

I remember your chair
and the sadness I felt when we were not there.
My mind riddled with images of you in that house,
lonely and alone.
I knew your heart ached. I felt it.
I knew your smile a façade. I saw it.
Overworked for a life that never came to be.
Groundhogs day for 13 years.

I remember that shipping container in the driveway,
accumulating your possessions
one
    by
      one.
I remember the brisk autumn morning
driving you to the train station
with your makeshift bag from rope, tape and plastic.
The weight of the grief that fell from my eyes
too heavy to hold.
I remember how you walked away,
and never looked back.

Here, I stand in the wooden doorway
of the house now empty.
The memories pounding against the walls.
Your chair remains in the corner.
It still smells of you.
Words of love fall from my lips
and I close the door,
to what was,
and what is
no longer.

I make a lot of marks.
I'm good at making marks.
On paper.
On canvas.
On my skin.
I'm one of those people that folds the pages of a book.
(I hate those people too)
I searched for my place in this world
but it only confused me further.
So I decided to etch my own place.
Luckily,
I'm good at making marks.
I've made a lot of marks.

Coffee.
Cigarette.
A little white pill.
(I take it for you)

Someone should water
the basil on the windowsill.

Tomorrow.

I told him
     “I’m going to buy lots of make up,
some expensive clothes,
                              you know,
          the ones that come with logos,
and get a proper hair cut.
That’s how you like your girls,
          isn’t it?”
He walked over,
planted a kiss on my head and said,
“I like them smart,
                which you’re not being right now.”

And I think that was the best thing
                        he ever said.

Ripe and seductive,
   looming enchantment.
Tethered to the Earth,
   gravid in forbidden fruit.
Gifts from our fore-mothers,
   the curse of Eve.
Flirtatious and charming is she,
   selfish and heartless she is.
An acquired taste for the verboten,
   tempted by Adam's betrothal.
And flee he did, his little honeybees,
   to feast upon her ruby nectar.
Have you ever heard the honeybees cry?
   neither have I.
The apple never falls far from the tree,
   ruby and ripe like my mother.
My father was a honeybee,
   and I am my father's daughter.

So steady. So stable.
So grounded.

Patience matched by none.
Especially not me.




Air and water -
births francium hearts.

Eyes of blue -
ever nubivagant.




White picket fence -
of your smile.

At home among the trees.
The forests in your eyes.




Waxing gibbous perpetuating -
bleeding roses.

A tsunami of womanhood.
Savage oscillation.




My darling obelisk.
Unwavering strength.

A waltz of hearts
to guide me home.

Vapid people
dribbling vapid shxt.
A society of ****-eyed,
drunken infants
debating politics memorised
from Fox News.

We, the awakened,
plastering social media
with doll-faced mannequins
captioned with some Eastern Philosophy
we read in Cosmo,
enhanced with a filter
titled "Who The **** Is Lao Tzu?"
Comments read: goals af.
(Insert emoji here)

And praise the Indigo Children!
It's a true gift indeed
to talk about activism
until blue in the face.
My, what a spiritual hue, are you.
Are you?

A generation of craft makers,
weaving their way
through the alcoholic labyrinth,
drawing the Hungover Man
from a Rider Waite tarot deck,
for another episode of Dull and Duller
next weekend.

Moon in Scorpio.
Incurable somnolence.
Plutonian pranks.

Crowns embellished
with ebony bewitching.
A sliver of gold
pierces the veil.
Stalemate defined
by velveteen seas.
Eyes of steel incandescent
under the blacksmiths hands.
The finest sapphires inlaid.
A woman in hand
the mightiest of weapons.
Snowy mountains nourished
the victory of Man.
Gravid in mysticism
keeper of seeds
bloomed the Kings strength.

Petals of paper
for a stature svelte.
An opxum core.

Swindling willow
waltz upon a stage.
Tethered by the same roots.

A ***** moon,
an ascending tide.
Longing lovers without passports.

Army of emerald soldiers
seduced by ruby gypsies.
Ashen by a kiss.

Clumsy hearts vitrified -
never worn on sleeves.
Await a hummingbird.

You, me and my melancholy.
And nobody fxcks harder than her.

The person you meet
and who they end up being,
are never the same.

The town still drips
with last nights alcohol consumption,
effervescent with AWOL brain cells.
Romance viewed from the inside of a glass,
vanished in its absence.
Neon bar signs became the stargazing
of the twenty-first century
and hangovers a fast burning cigarette,
leaving romance to pile
in a duotone of grey
in the ashtray of our heartless society.

A man and wife go to lunch.
Premium burgers, shakes and fries.
It's cheap and he can wear his sweatpants.
For every one couple,
there's twenty single fathers
with his children.
(a depressing ratio)
It must be custody weekend.
At the Heartbreak Hotel
tables for two occupy singles.
The men picked out their best shirts
and the women painted their lips.
Looking only for a conversation,
they leave with a bill
priced with another Sunday
of shattered hope.