Grass-stained shirt hems,
     your mother's scrawl inside your collar, faded.
Scuffed knees,
     not quite bleeding.
Too far away from home,
     swimming in your reflection in your watery cup of tea.
Ripped up notebooks,
     a writer's love ignited.
Rough wine on the banks of the canal,
     crying, laughing, tumbling still.

Cradling snowy doves in your soft palms;
     fluttering wings and fluttering smiles.
Tip-toeing shorelines, wet grass on riverbanks;
     sun-kissed shoulders and Apollo's eyes.
Flushed skin in the shade of Pelion,
     fig juice in your cold gold hair.

cracked porcelain cups, spilt forgotten tea,
     stale uneaten biscuits and the freckles of crumbs
on a matching hand-painted plate.

I have a question: how can i not doubt? how can I expect truth after a year of silence? there was a year of silence followed by loud bursts of colour that have rendered me blind to any such truth. silence; silence breeds an illness that can only burrow far - silently - until it can dig no deeper, and where it settles is the nest of doubt you have been hiding for so long. when the eggs hatch and the baby spiders of horrible truth and revelation come skittering around those cerebral planes, you can do nothing. it is known you are in love. silence; silence breeds a want, a deep slow burn of some diseased flame on a wick that can only wither into heavy dust, and this dust too will settle and it will melt into your mind and while you doubt, you know there is a reason you doubt. you know that you doubt because you are afraid. you are afraid of the truth that the flame ignites and you are afraid of the truth that will paint the walls of your skull when the baby spiders of realisation explode from the heat of the moment. you are afraid that after this silence you are right and that you are in love and you are afraid that after this silence you are right and that he is not
and then the baby spiders do what baby spiders do best. they crawl out and they feed on your heart and you can't do a thing until it's all gone
and when it's all gone he is gone with it and you are nothing but a spider's nest of cocooned doubt and hatred, the antithesis of life

drowning in tiny oceans.
schiele-esque nudes
     in german poetry books.
speaking in tongues.
visiting graves
     in two different territories.
ginger cats with moonstone eyes.
****** noses
     in street lamp-yellowed alleys.

God knows I love her;
     even when my eyes are glassy and I will not see her.
I love her,
     if there's such a thing as crying in bed for days wishing you could be with her, somewhere else, that's love.
I love her,
     when there's everybody else and I cannot see her.
I love her,
     if there's such a thing as forgetting your commitments down to the last second and your heart swells with the sin you almost did, remembering her,
that's love.

The clang of armour rings through the clamour
      of our men screaming thy name.
Thy name that I bear, blazing bright
      as these brazen greaves.
A-CHIL-LES.

It is not I that they know.
It is not my feet that are thus as swift as thine;
    though they would believe it.
It is not my rough hands that are never wrong;
    but that have rather slain Sarpedon, now.

It is not thy knees that quake at Hector's call; 'tis mine own.
    A-CHIL-LES.
It is not thy eyes that water in fear,
    it is not thy hands that grasp thy spear, 'tis mine own.
Never wrong. Never wrong. Never wrong.

It is not thy gold-spun curls that spill forth,
    as thy helmet falls.
It is not thy blood that stains Hector's spear;
    it is not thy chest that splinters, 'tis mine own.

The clang of spear piercing armour rings through the clamour
      of our men screaming my name.
My name that I bear, blazing bright
      as thy brazen greaves.
PA-TRO-CLUS.

Barefoot in fields of flowers,
     in the shadow of your watercolour mountains.
Holding the hands of birdmen,
     in the glow of your firefly killing jar.

Chain smoking;
     three in the morning. Then four. Then two.
Red wine haze;
     street lights echoing in the stars.
Cold cheeks;
     cold toes, warm lonely champagne.
Missing notches in your spine that isn't there,
     too scared to go back to bed.

Baby lives in memories,
     his smile lives in broken school-yard promises.
Baby lost himself,
     gentle whispering between two boys underage.
Baby cries to sleep at night,
     stealing a Corot off the wall to feed a lie.
Baby still has belt scars,
     baby still knows the Lord's prayer.
Sunflower boy, bird-***** boy
     with ***** knees from church,
patron saint of flush-faced virginity and angel tears.

Ivory skin,
     alabaster nerves.
Daisy chain veins,
     lily petal fingertips.
Eggshell skull,
     cellophane lungs.
Brittle ladder ribcage,
     punctured balloon heart.
Spineless ***** child,
     with his birds' bones and naivety.

let's ***** our romance
     from broken cathedral windows.
I'll kiss your feet
     as they bleed from the shards of cherry wine bottles.
let's carve out our stomachs
     and eat them with coffee and the morning chorus.
I'll watch you make a mess of prostitutes
     so that pink and white clouds at sunrise mean nothing else to me.
let's go and sit by the sea
     or the Seine, I don't mind,
let's drown on parched cobblestone streets.

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art...*
Perhaps not so much.
It would be better to burn, yes;
     to witness the trembling of a thousand suns,
to thumb each tremor of the human heart.
Surely it would be better to burn;
     but to fade, to die with bright sensation,
to linger in the memory of some ancient constellation.

Transience is key, you know.
The gentle ebb and flow of your pulse
     and the sudden thrumming of your triste coeur,
the flash of his hair in the sun.
The blush on the back of your neck
     and the woeful pang of lust,
buried back down by his muffled laughs.
Empty space,
     flinching warm fingers,
bitten holes in smooth cherry lips -
Remembering you're just lonely,
     not thinking about him for a second once you're out the door,
except when you catch his eyes in the rain.
     Fleeting moments often last the longest,
that's when you know you're sick.

Skin as pale as lilies,
     now livid with interrupted bloom.
Bruises as dark as that Irish lake,
     five of them, of a brutish nightshade hue.
Body as limp as the towel they used to rub you warm to no avail,
     dotted over with dirt, your shirt torn through.
Eyes as vacant as the echo in a tomb,
     once blue before, now glazed over with vitreous dew.
Oh Clerval, how I have forsaken you.

Warm knees brushing together
     under restaurant tables.
Candlelight, lemon tea,
     broken laughter, faking a blush.

The breath of the hesitant sun
     is cool against the nape of your neck.
Crimson red café fronts flutter in the breeze.
Your feet are bruised on cobblestones,
     your soles worn down.
The gentle murmur of the foreign students,
     the rhythm of the Hindu philosophers,
the hot smell of cinnamon thick in your head.

It's been a thousand Saturdays,
     it's been a hundred harvest moons.
It's been one too many cups
     of coffee in the sun,
it's been a lifetime of blisters
     on the pads of your toes.
It's been more than enough time,
     it's been twenty-thousand stars.

Oberon stands by;
     summer is asleep.
Puck reclines, lethargic eyes,
     wildflowers threaded
through his coarse, nether hair.

À moi. L'histoire d'une de mes amours.*
He was light.
He was radiant,
     and he was rapt.
He was brilliant,
     and he was blithe.
He was sent,
     and he was sound.
He was bliss, he was my rapture;
     he was my God and my nirvana.

But he was grief.
He was woe,
     and he was worry.
He was mistake,
     and he was malaise.
He was anguish,
     and he was agony.
He was in my very flesh;
     the yellow pulsing tumour of wretched, blinded love.

Oh, his little bruises.
His little scrapes.
All his little stars in his pocket
or on his sleeve,
his hair tumbling around his face like rain,
like all his little tears.
There are little flecks of blood under his nails,
but he was blushing in the dark.

That leftover warmth on
     disordered bedclothes;
the leftover smell
     of sleep.
Tumbling through
     crushing darkness;
stumbling over silent
     exploding lights.
The reek
     of sterile sunlight;
frosted windows
     so ***** that they're clean.

I'd like to see your eyes,
     maybe one more time.
I'd like to see the blue,
     glisten like glassy globes
two feet underwater.

Life - love - death - are all but a flicker of a flame;
     the flutter of a scarf in the breeze.
Here one moment,
     gone the next,
like slipping over the edge of sleep
and being wrenched back up again.

Cold, wet footprints of drowned ghosts
     leading you towards nowhere, a heat-blurred unreachable zenith.
Unlit candles, china white on a china plate,
     shots of *****, shots of bleach.
Ambling along dusty corridors,
     hallways with loose floorboards and memories you're not sure you ever had.
Desert haze, his brooding gaze,
     conversational Russian 101 and irretrievable moments
alone in bed together while Sean Connery distracts you from the press of his fingers.

Closing time.
     Cold marble steps, brisk evening air.
Small cappuccinos,
     hot chocolate with cream you didn't ask for.
The Canadian Embassy
     casting glittering lights across the fountain waters.
Faint indigo sky,
     laughing about the Renaissance,
falling asleep on the Bakerloo.

Trafalgar in springtime;
     more people than you're used to.
Trafalgar in flickering sunlight;
     more warmth than you're used to.
Trafalgar in the afternoon;
     heavy clouds and weightless pigeon wings.
Dusty hands and feet;
     torn-open knees and holey socks.
Rumpled collar and hair;
     torn to pieces in a mess of watercoloured pages.
Trafalgar in springtime;
     forget the winter, leave it in the ground.

Tepid summer nights and
     holes in the soles of your feet.
Holes in your wrists, no?
Soft fluttering of dusted eyelashes and
     the pale pink of morning sun as you turn your cheek.
Blushing like a schoolgirl, no?
***** fingertips on dirtied skin and
     toothy smiles, moth-eaten pillowcases, stale whispers.
*'Pour susurrer des mots doux', non?

Our souls are empty space,
    black peeling paint on your bedroom door.
Our hearts are made of bursting yellow,
    dripping handprints of eternal sun.
Our eyes are dull and lonely,
    murky paint water and smashed beer kegs.
Our eyes are smoky and dark,
    grey as Rimbaud's cheeks on the covers of your books.
Our hearts are bare, white skin,
    liver spots and silvery temple hairs.
Our souls are speckled brown doves,
    the beating of frustrating wings,
*je rappel maintenant ce que c'est que d'être libre.

Bare feet torn on muddy grass.
Blink slowly,
     feel the wind between your fingers.
Tilt your head,
     offer your throat to the sun.
Laugh,
     make music with the birds.
Run as fast as you can,
     stop to sing with the crickets.
Wander slowly, close your eyes,
     feel the sun play symphonies on your arms,
skin speckled with the light of every star.

Have I found God?
     Where is he?
He is in your hair.

We exist, you and I;
not too much, not quite enough;
but we exist,
just like real people do.

So then is this how it feels
     at the end of the world?
Everyone is nothing, we are nothing,
     nothing in the ground.
Is this how it feels
     to watch the statues of Rome crumble and
buckle at the knees?
Everything is nothing, it is nothing,
     nothing on the funeral pile.
Is this how it feels
     to have armageddon abandon you,
leave you screaming on cracked cathedral floors?
I am nothing, I am nowhere,
     nothing underground.

Warm breath against the shell of your ear,
     your violet-veined eyelids fluttering.
Palms cupped full of melted gold,
     spattered ink on the pages of the book of life.
Reading Shelley on gum-dotted sidewalks,
     an oxford shoe through the lens of your binoculars.
Familiar fingers knotted into yours,
     blue bows tied around your clavicle.

Go home, star brother -
     take the even flow, shuttle out of nowhere,
go home where Andromeda waits.
Take it slow, star brother -
     hitch a ride below Orion's belt,
go home where heartbeats stay.

Fingertips tracing
     each of your ribs;
tapping out a word, perhaps,
     a tune from Chopin's early days.

There was someone, once.
Someone neither boy nor girl,
someone made from life.
Someone who could weave magic from the flowers,
someone who wept magic.
Someone who would not crumble;
no, they would not fall.
Someone who built their walls so high
that they would scrape the stars.

And so, with him, the marble body of Apollo would not be so easily outdone.
Look how Hephaestus' muscle-clad arms would not surrender,
    nor would his.
Look how Dionysus would weep at the acid in his vineyard veins,
    eyelids struck with Zeus's violet lightning,
And so the blood in which Ares bathes drips down the fault lines in his chalky palms,
    lips pinker than the silk of a woman, smoother than Eros's thighs, feet bruised like Heracles's would have been.
Our modern day Paris, gorgeosity incarnate,
    even in that livid instant of death.

Cold fingers walk
     the ley lines of your veins.
***** dashed across your bedsheets,
     watercolour stains leak in your eyes.
Dead lilies in a cup of coffee,
     your world upside-down in a cracked glasses lens.

He will be every callus on your painter's fingers.
He will be every warm winter
     and every cold summer.
He will be every drop of rain.
He will be every scratch on the roof of your mouth
     and every last scar.
He will be every shard of light.
He will be every book unread,
     and every cup of tea gone cold.
He will be every speck of dust.
He will be every tempting kitchen knife,
     and every broken promise.
He will be every single thought.
He will be every one of your bleeding gums,
     and each of your blackened lungs.
He will be every torn out page.
He will be every picture on a postcard,
     and every blood-stained bed.
He will be every shot of morphine.
He will be every pigeon feather,
     and every torn-apart crow.

inch-deep paper cuts,
sodden matches, dead roses,
mouldy coffee cups

Notches in her spine,
     bruised hard and in between.
Her sharp red hair,
     torn from the root and in clumps around your feet.
Blood pooling in your mouth,
     the drops look different on your sheets than they do on her skin.
Fluttering doves on the windowsill,
     afternoon sunlight and pressed flowers in books you know belonged to him.
Charcoal smudges darker than shadow,
     along the crease in your thigh and her shattered scapula.
Papercuts line the soles of her feet,
     and his teeth swallow you whole.

warm handprints
     lingering like desperate spectres
watery honey eyes
     blinking away restless sleep
phantom pains from kisses
     months ago you can't remember
dust motes on decaying skin
     parting breaths and livid smiles
you've never felt so alive
     as when he died

I see us in technicolour delights,
    jabbing knives into old dictionaries to name strangers' children,
surrounded by foreign fire,
    alone but all at once together,
but borders and rivers cannot change our laughter.

A dash of spluttered kisses
     come raining down on your neck.
Buried in your sandy hair,
     shining lips in the candlelight.
I don't speak your language,
     you barely speak mine,
*Ik wil jij.

stupid living boys
     and their hummingbird hearts.
stupid dead boys
     and their lingering stares.
supermarket polaroids,
     cold apartment poetry,
faded glassy eyes,
     ***** fingernails.

Oh, would you look at that;
     the way you break my back
with your tiresome nihilist verse.
The way that you breathe in irregular verbs,
     your eyebrows knitting together
like some fine bridge between two bold constellations.

Crushing, isn't it;
     the absent brush of skin-on-skin.
Cold toes under warm sheets,
     the bed is empty all the same.
Ghosts of lovers past,
     numb tongues, carpet burn on your knees.
Soft murmurs, be quiet, I know, I know, shh,
     bruises on your knuckles from being held so tight.
Crushing, isn't it;
     the missing weight of bodies on top of yours.
Lukewarm kisses on yielding skin,
     he is gone all the same.
You promised your heart wouldn't burst as he himself did,
     and he is gone all the same.

Mustard sweaters in the Mauritshuis,
     scattered ashes at the foot of our bed.
We run, run round in circles,
     till the stars drop out of their cat's cradles and into our laps.
Empty paintings and glasses frames,
     dozing atop anarchist literature in the back alleys
of some distant treasure island.

We wander together,
     your hair a burnished gold beneath the streetlamps.
We hold hands,
     your eyes wild and bright in bursts of taxicab headlights.
You pull on my collar,
     your lips stained and blurred from the wine.
We cling to one another,
     the stone steps slip under our feet, I catch you.
We run together, scream together,
     our raucous laughter bouncing off the walls and the sky.
We tumble together,
     you a mess of hair and cold fingers, the water is in my shoes.
We gasp together,
     the fountain has filled our lungs and you kiss me hard. The lights below the surface are flickering and I see black spots where your eyes used to be.
We crawl across the square together,
    giggling, you pull out a cigarette that hangs crooked and dripping between your drunken lips, your devil's smile.
We watch the stars together,
     laying on our wet backs while the earth turns and my stomach churns and my sick heart yearns.
The stars will stop for us.