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.

Moon in Scorpio.
Incurable somnolence.
Plutonian pranks.

The bombs already drop
in rhythmic succession,
brewing but little
condemnation.
Millions bleed the colour of soil -
impoverished by
rich mans toil.
But not a tear,
not a song is shed - unless,
they bleed the colour of
the dollar bill.

4
10:30
"Knock knock"
Still in my pyjamas.
We drank coffee and smoked cigarettes.
He went to a rap gig the night before.
Fifteen dollars wasted.

3
13:00
An old school friend.
More coffee.
We spoke of art, travel and vegetable gardens.
In Japan they don't eat or show affection in public she told me.
Aokigahara finally makes sense.

2
22:00
Lucky Coq.
Girls would ****** for his hair.
He told me of his grandfathers poetry recitals every Christmas.
Idiosyncrasies are the ventriloquists of my heart.

1
23:00
We smoked under vine-entwined lanterns.
He fell in love with a French girl once and lived with her in Versailles.
He was young and went back home.
Regret at the fork in the road.

0
23:30
Left to find a 24/7 bottle shop and go home.
Crossed paths with old friends.
"Come have a drink with us"
-1
-2
-3

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.

"Cheers!" and we drink to
this totalitarian,
patriarchal ****.

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.

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

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.

With a little bit of bleach and a rounded xss
they think they can be Marilyn Monroe
but never strive high enough to **** a JFK,
instead they're down on their knees for a Trump
refreshing their Instagram.

How peculiar it is,
all that we keep alive with our thoughts.
I wonder,
whether it is as photosynthesis is to the plant
and a flower is yet to bloom,
or whether our faces will become blue
in the name of fallacy.

Think wisely.

I've seen you there
amongst the lavender fields
when you thought no one was watching.
Memories that dance
a longing daydream,
weaving strings of lilac through my veins.
I knew you would plague me,
but my eyes supped upon you.
Supped and supped again
until lavished by an allure
a thousand French patisseries
could never usurp.
Your taste inspired madness -
a craze you too endured.
We turned over pages
and bewildered them with Eden's of ivy
that flourished within our skulls.
If Van Gogh were a writer
he'd write like us.
A fable of seraphic beauty
and lucid insanity,
knotted together
with existential philosophy.
"Being and Nothingness"
(Sartre understood)
but we were 50 years too late
to the Café de Flore.
Those were memories of yesteryear,
sealed with the rosy hue of antiquity
I was always fond of.
I can almost lick that scent of lavender
that clings to the photographs,
but I fear my tongue may bleed.
So I admire them on a mantelpiece
in a dust-soaked room
where all that I love
(and have loved)
may live.
I know that room not by daylight,
for I dare not be seen to enter.
Only the high rise moon knows
that those footprints
belong to me.

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.

I've been lost in time
these last few months -
with clocks that won't tock
and days that won't stop.
And I was happy.
Or maybe a little too comfortable.
It's all the same -
because the sun won't always shine
and you can't stop the rain.
But time will always find you
and I'm here now.
So where are you?
Are you hiding too?
Running from the monotonous chime -
the one that dictates your waking
and your slumber -
your not so silent slumber.
Trapped within the walls of time,
is this living?
Or is this death?
It doesn't matter,
the trees will still grow
either way.
And I'm here now -
I wear bells now -
to throw that monotonous chime
out of time.
So where are you?
Do you wear bells too?
I don't weep -
no, I don't cry.
Because tears don't harmonise
with the monotonous chime.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

They call me fickle.
But what can you change if you
can't change your own mind?

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.

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.

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

Someone should water
the basil on the windowsill.

Tomorrow.

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.

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.

We're all hypocrites
preaching word of God.
It's not what you do
Monday to Friday, 9 - 5,
that interests me,
it's how you choose to spend
your Saturday nights
alone.
And more times than not,
you'll find the preachers
spanked up in a brothel
or in the neighbours bed
when the one who placed
that ring upon their finger
thought they were walking the dog.
Wear an 18 karat gold cross,
hang all the Live. Laugh. Love pictures
around the family home
and go to church on Sunday's,
but everyone knows
they sit on that prostitutes hand print
she left on his xss.
They sit lopsided too.
That handkerchief doesn't fool anyone.
They only carry it for the paranoia
that residue crack they snorted
off her chest still lingers
around their perfectly trimmed nostrils.
We're all hypocrites
preaching word of our own religions
and changing the bedsheets
every fxckxng morning.

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.

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.

Touch me,
like the quiver of my body
is a lyre that you must strum.
Speak to me,
like my voice is a psalm
you've never heard.
Kiss me,
like you're a desert wanderer
and my lips an oasis.
Love me,
like your heart is a wardrum
that will thunder
        without
                me.

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.

How do you shake that
which thrives on being crumbled?
It's simple - you don't.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I glanced at you -
an expression of calmness.
You hold your alcohol well.
You hold yourself better.
Art holds me together,
but it's all a waste.
Paint left to crack,
sxx, expended energy,
words that will fade,
alcohol pxssxd away.
It's all a fxckxng waste.
A taste of escape short-lived.
Some hands were made for rings,
others to wave goodbye.
Love is art of a devilish kind.
Survival of the fittest became
a game of Russian roulette
in the players hands.
And we play forgetting that the bureaucrats
are masters of counting cards.
The barrels will fire either way.
Sobriety will not save you
and wine will deceive you.
It's best to leave them for the masters
and play your hand anyway.

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.

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.

Twice did our love see the roses of
St. Valentine's rising sun.
That which follows,
worse than the one foregone.
For we were never
the type
to
obey.

The fourteenth day
of that second month,
he came to me
and I heard him say,
"My darling, for you I bestow a gift!
The gift of irony -
no gift at all."
He knew me
and he knew
me
well.

Then the second Valentines
saw that this year
I'd have a gift for him.
A gift he'd rather not hear.
A gift I'd rather not bear.
The gift to end
all
gifts.

He's happy now.
He has another now.
And I'll be okay so long
as the sky remains blue,
and the setting sun leaves
the clouds
a rosy
hue.

Remove these photographs
from inside my skull.
Can't you see
they're making my heart too sore?
Take these rose-tinted glasses
from upon my face -
for I cannot
bear them
anymore.

Don't fall in love with an artist.
You'll come to love the way
the beauty of the world
reflects through their eyes
in an awestruck childish glimmer
and you won't remember how to see
when they're gone.

No one will love you like an artist can.
They'll memorise all the tones
of your skin
and perfect the shades
in every mound and valley
and they'll only paint
with black and white
when you're gone.

Tonight I will sleep on my fragmented thoughts
that my anxieties found too delicate to embrace.

Crushed by nature and neglected from nurture -
I'm not one to hoard but my head must rest.

Is it so wrong for a woman to caress her melancholy
as tenderly as she does her lover?

These pieces of madness once smelled so sweet
like the roses I've kept from years foregone.

I crowd my mind with scraps of death
to remind myself that what is dead, is never gone.

She was but a sonnet like no other,
With a tongue of rose and hands cold as snow.
And happy were we, I and my lover,
Wandering land our souls could only know.
For flowers so picturesque there did grow.
O' but one morning the weatherman said -
"Halt! Winter is coming, beware of snow."
Listen we didn't but read books instead -
Ignoring the voices inside our heads.
The lands deceased as the Winter drew nigh,
Now brown and withered are the roses red.
Alas came sorrow and the Heavens cry.
Nightingales rise from within her heart -
Sing to the moon "thou shall not fall apart."

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.

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.

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.