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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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'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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

They say our eyes are biggest in our childhood
and cease to grow thereafter.
I speculate it's because the older we get,
the less we see.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.