You have always been unexpected
Friendship, love the whole lot of it
Leaving you was painful freedom
Still missing you, but I know I can rely on you.
I thought we were on the same page,
I’d have your back always
No matter the passed time.
But I’ve recently learned, so painfully learned- that you don’t have mine.
I used to think you could never surprise me but I never saw this coming
I used to think we’d always respect each other

I guess everything has to change
Things I thought were forever are slipping away
My time is up, my secrets are out
I couldn’t believe they came from your mouth
I thought with everything changing
Our trust would stay the same

I expect the worst from those around me
So the sins against me never surprise me
But with you it was different
I thought you were here to stick
I told you things I’ve never told anyone
You were the closest person to my heart
Loyalty meant so much to you
You know it meant the same to me
I used to think you could never surprise me but I never saw this coming
I used to think we’d always respect each other

But I guess everything has to change
People who I thought were forever are turning away
Safety no more, my secrets are out
I couldn’t believe they came from your mouth
I thought with everything changing
Our trust would stay the same

You’ve outed me to my enemies
In a foolish slip of tongue or with malicious intent,
so unlike you.
Now enemies they circle me and those close to me
Seeking out a weakness which I only let you see.
It was only meant for you and me.


Coming together while I was black and blue
I thought I’d be forever safe with you
I was never once afraid of you

Little did I know you were another wolf dressed in gold,
Summer only as lovers, you’ve brought the winter cold,
You’ve done the only thing that could ever truly **** me.
What have you done to me.

Lucky for you
I take your secrets
Undeservedly
To the grave with me,
Stay away from me
Don’t even lay sunflowers for me.

I wish that I could take it all back
Every secret I shared with you
Every loyalty every memory every vulnerability
Tears running down my cheeks
Sharing breaths under the sheets
Wish I knew in less than a year you couldn’t care
if you betrayed me
if you ruined me
Like only you could hurt me.

You’ve wounded me
You’ve burned me
Beyond repair

Shifting landscapes of us
I am yet to get used to.

How many times have I wandered between
The many “what ifs” and “if onlys” and “I wish’s.”
How many times have I actively slapped my very own hand
When it invariably reaches for you.

The reaching is a selfish hungry thing.
I crave you when I am disappearing.
Even though I loathe how I define myself when I’m with you,
She is better than the unknown
That is chasing and gaping at my heels.

And that isn’t love.

Thirsting after comfort and memories
Thirsting after somewhere to belong
Is not love.

It is hard to admit
It is hard to choose to walk away
Every
Hour
We
Are
Apart.

And that craving
Of how you made me feel
The warmth
The connection
The love
A love I have never seen nor tasted before
A love I did not know how to treat
Is always being denied

And cruel suggestions
And those closest to me doubt my choices
Like they would have any part in the consequences of the choice
I would live with everyday.

I don’t even entertain the white day anymore
I used to spend hours building our life
Stacking our goals into the shapes of home
The mansions in my mind
Were never here to stay

Do I seek a grass of an unattainable green?

I lay in the dark, many hours after we ended the call.
I will myself to cry.
The pain boils in my chest and aches in my bones.
But I lay in silence, trapped.
Are we not even worth tears anymore?
Is this when the grieving stops?

I fear seeing you now.
Because I am half bloomed.
The branches we grew on and nurtured
Are drying and snapping away in the breeze
I fear you will not like me
If you see the stranger I am now
Foreign and thorny to the touch.
Will you still think me pretty?
Will you still want to touch me?

No matter how close I get to the edge
To giving in and sprinting back to you
To beg on my knees for your forgiveness
To ask you to help us bring back the love,
No matter what
I can not reconcile and justify
The hatred I held
For who I became when we loved.
Loathesome and breaking
Hair knotted against my scalp
My angles softened and blurred
Till I became more invisible to the world
Than I have ever been.
We stopped the world on its axis
Our minds grew old
Our bodies ceased their progress
And only came alive when we set each other alight.
No,
I can never return to a halting.
Dust is preferable to ice.
Frozen and still
To the death.

I am wind and rain
I must move to live
And life rises in my gusts.
The waves of creation
Roll across new paths
For I am alive again
Wind snapping in the sails
Rising on the seas
I soar to new skies.

The missing comes
The loss never leaves
Maybe I’ll always want you
But you’ll never be good
For me.

“Will you crush my spirit someday?”
It was almost a joke
When the fear was shared.

Now
Lying in bed
Day shifting to night
Unable to rise
Defeated

The truth
I let you become
The hand
That felled me

I try to write about you
Try to sing like I used to
Rattling breath
Wheezing and violent
The defeated silence

I lost my voice
Somewhere along the way
I stopped being everything
You insist you love

But are you just in love
With set paths
Predictable roads
Are you just in love
With not being alone

Deep down I think you suffer like me
There’s voices whispering
Telling you you will never be loved
And this is your last chance too

I tried to sing
I thought pulling out
What my old voice wrote
Would remind me what I sound like

But instead I’m in silent tears
Note after note
Verse after verse
Black and white it’s written
Obvious

I’ll tell you about my last songs
The last true voice I ever had
I sung our fears
I sung my truth

It’s so cliche
To say im broken
But the evidence is too damning
We’ve always been doomed

I sing about a last great defeat
Blades that ran me through
I sung about a soul tearing
A destruction of self

I cannot be in love
My missing pieces have not grown back
Fires ravaged the forest I grew
After evil hands tore them up
Right to the roots

Black black black
Loss loss loss

I guess I never really moved forward
The memories are fleeting
If they ever come up
I have forgotten the details

But the belief
The shattering
The robbing of self
Has come with me all this time

The labels given to me
I wear as a crown
Of metal and debris
Announcing to all
I am
Beautiful
Tragic
Lost

Thank you.

For the support, the positivity and encouragement.
We all know how powerful
Words can be.
And you’ve made such a difference to me with yours.

I hope I can pay it forward
And give someone
The same love you gave me.

Thank you, always

—WindLass

I’ll never tell

I made the promise unconsciously
I closed the shutters
Nailed the doors shut
Pulled the curtains
To convince
I’m not sure who
That no one was home
So no one would hurt me anymore

I’ll never tell

Each time I tried
To dig the roots up
Pull out the rot
The thorns wrapped around my words
Bound them tight
With the shame
The anger
The fear
The pain

I’ll never tell

Rickety structures
Grew over me
Armor
Cutting the hands
Of any who
Came too close
I cut my hands
Trying to pull them down
To embrace them

I’ll never tell

It never belonged to me
Though the brand
Gleams on me
In the moonlight
When you tried to kiss me
How he did
Seems like only yesterday

Your eyes hold fear
Misunderstanding
The creature claiming me
I couldn’t stop
The roaring of my blood
The rising of the scream
I never let out
When hungrier hands
Closed on my throat

The colours the same
The smell the same
The hand on my thigh the same
The innocence of the embrace
The trust
How it all started

It’s not the same
It’s not the same
This is ma coeur
It’s not the same
It’s not him

My world shifts between
One of heaven
One of hell
I cannot find my reality
Not even to ease your fear
I could not stop my own
Rising like it did too late
On a night
So the same

I felt again
His bruising on my skin
Green and blue fingerprints
On my wrists
My collar bone
My leg
My throat
My hips

‘It’s so hot’ he’d say
As I shrank away
Not for the first time
It was our repeat routine
He’d always go too far
I’d leave him
With fear and shame

And he’d always be so sorry
‘I love you’ he’d say
‘There’s nothing wrong with this, this is normal’ he’d say
When I’d shrink from his hands
Tell him no no no
I’d tell him don’t touch me like that
And he’d say sorry
And do it again and again.
Tell me how unhappy it made him
If I didn’t let him do it

I don’t remember when I stopped trusting him
When i started to be afraid
My friends told me
It wasn’t normal
It wasn’t okay
When I’d finally share the secret
‘Get out of there!’
They’d say.
‘It’s not safe!’
But I don’t think they even knew
What was coming
What he could do.
I should have left him long before
It’s my fault you see
I taught him it was okay
To abuse me

In a way
My own nature and upbringing
Is to blame
I was born without a single desire
To fight
I’d bow my head and take the punches
Even as a child
I could not even play wrestle with my siblings
And they’d laugh and push me in front of strangers like a party trick
‘Look’ they’d say,
‘She won’t fight back’.

You see it hurt me more
To fight back
To hurt them
Than it did to be hurt
By them.

I was taught to love trust and forgive all
I was taught to be gentle
Even when the world isn’t gentle with you.

So I forgave
Over and over
Second, third, twentieth chances
Because he said he loved me
He was right wasn’t he?

Some part of me knew
My body, knew.
His lips on mine
Gave me a bitter taste in my mouth
I’d spit him out
I’d be repulsed
I stopped feeling like his touches were affectionate
And started taking them
Like punches

Everything was blue
It smelled like a new car
I was leaving him.
I couldn’t bear it any longer.
His pain was a violent thing.
I hurt with him
I couldn’t shut him out
I just wanted him to feel better
I should have known better
Than to reach for him.

I wrote it out
It still feels dishonest
So damning
Even now I cannot raise
Even a verbal hand against him
I don’t want anyone
To see the telling

I thought it’d be something
I could forget and bury
But this isn’t moving on
Sharing moments with my love
With his ghost

I’ll never tell
I promised
Because once I do
The witch hunt would start
And my life and his
Would be ruined worse
Than I am ruined
Already.

I’m sorry

You saw his branding
I saw how afraid you were.

I’m sorry
You have to share me with it.
I’m sorry,
My love, that

I’ll never tell.

I’m still so in love with you.

Oh the hours I’ve spent
Reliving the pictures of us
I held in my mind and in my hands

I’d look so carefully
Study our smiles
Your eyes,
My eyes
Every freckle and lash

Looking for that offending something
That doomed us to fail

At work I’ve been helpless
Gazing out the window
Dreamily
Heart and mind far away
Wandering with you.
‘Oh that’s a girl in love’
The old lady said
As she chuckled and shuffled out the door
My cheeks reddening.

What do I make of it all
I had so much questions and doubt.
Why do I only grow in more love for you
The longer we are apart
Why won’t it fade
Like everything else?

How can I still want you this much
When I know so strongly we are wrong
Why can’t I even use
This violent imagination
To even imagine myself with someone new?

Everyday is worse
Than the one before it
My calling reaching deafening pitch
Ma coeur ma coeur
Come home.

I’m still so in love with you.

I want to throw my arms around you
Bury my face in your neck
Breathe you in
Oh how I crave you
Kiss every inch of you
Tracing the lines of you
Painting you with my fingers
Feel drums deep in your chest,
Under my hands
Your laugh like sun bursting
From behind clouds
And how you’d look at me
Holding my face so gently
Fires in your eyes
Fierce and gentle at the same time
The crooked smile
The nervous hands
Asking, never taking
Oh how I want you.

I live for your words
An addict I’ve become
Counting the minutes between
Each contact. Each word.
I imagine how you’d say them
The shape of your lips
Your summer eyes
Changing and folding
With the seasons of your sentences
If words were water
My darling,
Let it pour.

I’m still so in love with you

The missing is unbearable
Desperate and hollow I’ve become
Your ghost
A spectre to follow your bright futures
I never wanted to be a shadow.
I am becoming yours.

I’m still so in love with you

And for that reason
I can’t have you.
For I left you to force you forward
So how can I justify
Taking you back
Even if it is
Into my begging arms.

All things have their time

Flowers bud then bloom
In fragrant bursts of colour and life
Wilting, browning, curling and dying
Just how they should

Trees shake off the frost
Greening up skeletal branches
Till the trunk sways
Under a crown of bushy green
That slowly turn gold orange and brown
And drops
As the world cycles again.

We too, bloomed.
You made me bloom
Then we wilted
I wilted
And we ended.

My most fervent dream for us
Was always that we’d
somehow be evergreen
Despite what nature has taught me.

We lived in summer, and died just before winter.

Except I wonder if we are now
Just dead branches
Wilted petals
Fallen leaves

When since the ending
Greenery has burst from our skin
Better than the unpruned tree
Our love seemed to be.

Maybe we had to let the bad fall away
Maybe what we had was the bad
So that something better could grow

The world keeps moving
Whether I will it to or not
And gold that was not yours
Asked for me.

And I know we had our time
And this is a time for pruning
But how can I accept
Different flowers
When even as he spoke
I wished
For yours.

All things have their time
Sunflowers and deep roots,
Tell me,
Is our time truly over?

I dealt death today.

I know it’s a part of the job.
I know I’ve seen it too many times to count.
But today,
I felt it.

I left the room long after their family did.
There was no where I could go
To escape their

Roaring grief.

They were long gone.
And I was left with their precious baby.
I curled his arms and legs up
Closed his eyes
Wrapped him up gently.
With love and respect
Here he’ll sleep forever.

And oh,
They are so thankful,
That it was me
That I understood
That I was so careful
That I spent the time with them.

And you’re not supposed to take it with you.
You’re supposed to leave it
When they walk out the door
With one less goodbye.

But I took it with me today.

The way they felt before
The way they felt after
The long quiet goodbyes
The man in a suit on his knees weeping
The mother and son making a cocoon
Sheltering their dying baby.
The solemn face of the woman who plays god.
The green death.
The last breath.
The heaving of the living as he gave his last.
The waiting.
Slower rhythm.
Quieter.
‘He’s gone now’.

I watched the clock
The same way I had
An hour before
Waiting for death.

Soon as I could
I fled out the door
Ran into the street
Tried to outrun it

Instead I ran to you
I dialled your number
With shaking hands

I know I’m not supposed to
But all I wanted was you
Your voice

Ringing out
Thankfully
I wept alone.

Today I dealt death
And I found I am not strong enough
To sustain this
Alone
Or for long.

I found I still consider you my haven
Deep down
But that you are not my haven anymore
Or should be.

I listened to the silence
After the call rang out
And decided

I wander between
Believing you really loved me or not

Whether it was just a name to put to
The intensity
The infatuation
The longing
The home
That we were

Words don’t come easily.
But my heart,
They are the lifeblood of a successful love.

I have to use my imagination too often
And she is a violent thing.

So
Let her in
She who comes after
My madness.
My love.

Tell her everything
Don’t make her guess
Don’t only tell her once
Don’t assume a title
Is enough to know the book.

Share your inner world
Tell her of your sorrows
The strange thoughts
The joy
The pain

All is worthy
All helps her understand

I think that’s what it came down to with us
Too much guessing
I never told you what you needed to hear
I sat in your silences guessing too often

It was hard
For both of us
To speak

You know,
Raising one voice
Encourages the raising of another.

So
Don’t make our same mistake.
Skip the wounding quiet
The voids where there should have been something.
Don’t discount the words
Because they mean nothing to you
Trust me
They will mean everything to her.
They will prevent the withdrawing from each other.

I will do the same.
I am not guiltless.
I am not without sorrow
And regrets.

And now you’re far from me.
It’s foolish, I know,
Speaking to you,
Here.

I try to tell you
All the things
I never could.

Maybe I will forgive us now
For our silence

By breaking it.

I think when you leave something
Healthy
There’s none of the poison
A hurtful goodbye has.

You spend less time healing
Because there was less damage
Like leaving a flower unpicked
To cycle how it should.

The bliss fades
The heat disappates
Until you find yourself
No longer living for the warmth
Finding yourself
Your own source of light.

These past weeks
I’ve felt your absence
Hollowly
Achingly.
All my movements
Jagged and uneven
Missing the piece of me that was you
Not knowing how to live without it

How I call for you

How strange it is
The day you wake up
And find yourself breathing
Air that didn’t ask for you
To make it taste so good

I found myself waiting
Those silences that destroyed us
Became so tiresome
And I had no desire
To hold onto them
Even though it meant
Letting go of you.

You’re much better at letting go than I
And your forgetting
Your quiet
Your leaving
Has helped me take my first
Sure steps
Away from us

You’re my golden heart
You will always have that name
My good and faithful coeur
You brought me to life
Wilted and dying
Bearing so many hurts
That should never have belonged to me.

I painted you as the sun
Blooming orange and gold on my night horizons
My ashen skin
Shook off it’s dust
Green and living
I rose because of you.

How we have loved.

I sleep under endless constellations
Surrounded by foreign
But welcoming voices

I am alright

The night sings
I’m reminded of you
And our breath rising
Under the cloak of another sky

But it is good.
We were good.
Your memory building me
Instead of breaking me
It’s all I know how to do.

My coeur,
My heart.

I think I can let you go now.

I thought I could stave off the insanity
Because we ended so well
But I drove through a storm
And I became one

I talked to you
Out loud
Pretended you were still sitting beside me
Launched a conversation that I only wanted to have with you.

I told you
Everything.

I wept
Openly

I confessed
I begged
I reminisced

“How ironic,”
I said at one point in the one sided conversation
“That we should work together better than we ever have now it’s over.”

And I smiled bitterly
And sobbed.

I knew what you’d say,
I could almost hear the deep sounds of your voice
Oh how I craved them.

‘Don’t call.’
The still sane part of me whispered.
‘Let him let you go’.

So I told his ghost.
That I missed him.
How hard it was, him being the only one I wanted to talk to about it.
I told him that I knew he was on the road to moving on from me
That he was already well down the path of discovery
And that he’s soon figure out
That he could do so much better
Than me.
That the evidence was
I was no longer a priority, did he notice?
He forgot me, for long stretches.
I am both happy and heart broken about it.

Did he not remember how I feared being forgotten.

I told his ghost it was okay he was already forgetting.
That the part of me that loves him cleanly
Knew this was the right way to go.
I told his ghost the part that loved him selfishly
Was the part hurting the most
How it protested the forgetting
And begged me to call him.
To return to him.
“I’m still so in love with you”
I cried into the night.

Ah and this is where the insanity sets in
The Unmet expectations
The guessing

I love you.
But I can’t keep doing this to you.
I can’t keep calling you back to me.

So watch me go
Feel my rain, my thunder
And then forget as I drift away
Like a passing storm

The sea has always been
A haven
For me

Wrapped in the waves
Peaceful in the deep
The weights are lifted
On the rise of
It’s heaving chest

Your absence has done strange things to me
So I returned to the sea
To find some normalcy

The sand celebrated
Rising with each step
Welcoming me home
Like a prodigal son

As I breathed it in
I found a flavour on the wind
That never belonged here

And there you are
Suddenly
My eyes drinking you in like an addict
My hands reach out to meet you
Involuntarily
And the calling calling
Of my heart
On your name
Reaches a deafening pitch

My legs are held up by the sea
I lose my strength to stand
‘Ma Coeur’
Tears from my lips.
Relief.
The salt of the sea
Robbing my tears
From my cheeks.
My heart, ma coeur.
My cells sing and my spirit hums.
We are home.
We are home.

But
Before my fingers touch you
Feel the embers from your skin
They sing through
Cold
And empty
Air

And the haven
Is not a haven at all
For it calls for you
With its voice of roaring waves
And wind
With my voice too.

Ma coeur
Come back
Come back!

What have you done?
What have I done?

What have we done to your heart?

I am still

The world is moving
Leaves growing and falling
Changing

But I am still

I am anchored
Days ago
In your arms.

The city plays its strange song
My heart picking up with every step
Toward you
I’m fine
I say,
Too many times to be believed.

I feel my body give way
To a truth I don’t want to feel
When I catch sight of you
It’s like I’ve been hit by something
And it’s all I can do
Not to crumble
Not to run to you.

You smile and hold me for too short a second
I tell myself I don’t care
Even as I feel my fingers aching for you.
You talk you laugh
The sounds of the city dying in your wake
I am entranced by you
I cannot bear to look at you
And yet I cannot look away

You’re beautiful.
All my favourite things.
We walk and talk
And the knife in my throat
lungs that are bricks
Magnetic bones
Steal my words and actions
And I can see you noticing
So I try to become
An actress
aloof
And certain.

My appetite is gone
All my efforts in my charade
You tell me your truths
Truths I wish we’d heard so long ago
And my heart breaks on each one of them
I force the food down.
I study the smells and the sights
Try to stay in the moment
Try to keep it together
When all I want to do
Is reach across
The chasm I built
And weep in your arms
And tell you I was wrong,
Come home.

“I am fine”
I say as your eyes pick at the cracks.

You lead me through
Mazes of architecture and emotions
I’m hypnotised by you
My love, my heart, ma coeur
My body electrified by your presence
Calling calling calling for you
Aching aching aching for you

We sit the same as we always have
Except
So different.
You’re different, more whole somehow and I am successful,
But broken.

We hide in the echoes of an underpass
Chaos and kaleidoscopes of life around us
Oh but how quiet the world becomes
When you speak

Your voice breaks
And with it my charade
Oh my heart
I’m so in love with you
How could I have done this to us.
Completely given up
I cease to fight
And you’re in my arms
We are where we should be.

Holding you like that
Breathing you in
No questions here
We are one heart, one mind
I wished I could be closer to you
I wished you’d hold me tighter
I wished the evidence
Of the right leaving brought
Wasn’t all around us.

You’re talking and we draw in
I cannot keep it up
Ma coeur I cannot.
Coming home in kissing you
Unnatural before, now we are what were meant to be.
You taste so sweet
And I can’t stop reaching
I hold your face like something fragile
I trace the curves of your lips
I lose myself in your summer
And the calling calling
Celebrates into a contented hum.

We’re by the water,
Your hand in mine.
I’ve never felt so complete.
Your lips trace my jaw and whisper
Our truth to my ears.
You are and always will be Ma coeur.

We laugh we play
It’s our best day.
It’s our best day.

The drive home
Myriad of lights and night shadows
And you warm beside.
Though we drive toward
Our end
I hold you every moment I get
I memorise you.

A desperation sets in
As the parting draws closer
You kiss me sweetly
Lighting a fire in my veins
I fold around you like petals
Oh how I want you.

The stars peek behind patchwork’s of cloud
And we hold and kiss each other
As we watch them lazily stroll the sky
You speak softly to me
We talk about goodbyes
We talk about love

And then
We’re standing the the street
You’re holding me one last time
And I’m screaming inside
The intense grieving trying to break through my lips
Each stray sob
You stroke my hair and hold me close
You kiss the tears from my eyes
You tell me it’s okay
This is alright
We have this night.

Days ago,
I wept as I drove away from you
I refused to look back.
For fear I couldn’t stop myself
Returning to you.

Now
I am still

The world is moving
Leaves growing and falling
Changing

But I am still

I am anchored
Days ago
Still
In your arms.

He’s been on my mind
They say that time heals all wounds but
He’s been on my mind for so long
Thought that I was done
I didn’t want to fall in love
I’ve learnt my lesson from ‘the one’

Your golden eyes are holding mine
Like I never thought I could be
Held like that
Held like that
And then you smile with those summer eyes
And I’m shining like
I didn’t know I could
Know I could
And it’s 3am and the thought keeps ringing

I can’t wait till I see you again
Don’t know what I’ll say
I’m afraid
I’ll want you to stay
Golden eyes to chase me from sleep
Maybe this is all it is
So I thank you for the dream
I lay and I watch wall flowers like they’ve watched me
Catch the moment
Feel it set you free

You’ve been on my mind
I try to stop myself reaching for you
You’ve been on my mind
On top of all his memories
I know I can trust you
But I don’t trust falling again
I can see you falling for me too

I play it over in my mind
Your gentle touch,warm by my side
Didn’t think I’d be okay like that
I’m ok like that
All the fear I’ve learnt from men
I forget when I’m in your hands
Like I never thought I could
Ever do
And it’s 3am and the thought keeps ringing

I can’t wait till I see you again
Don’t know what I’ll say
I’m afraid
I’ll want you to stay
Golden eyes to chase me from sleep
Maybe this is all it is
So I thank you for the dream
I lay and I watch wallflowers like they’ve watched me
Cath the moment
Feel it set you free

And I’m not doubtless
Is this all too soon?
Am I still too bruised?
Is what’s left of me
Enough for us?
Enough for you?

And it’s 3am and the thought keeps ringing.

I loathe the silences.

But
It’s been hours since,
We said goodbye,
And I seem to be stuck,
Hours ago,
In that silence I so loathe.

.....
......
‘Still there?’
You say,
somehow not breaking the spell.
‘I just....’
I start,
The sob stealing my sounds.
Shuddering breath,
‘I’m just not ready to let go, just yet.’

....
....
....
‘Holding on a little longer?’
....
....
‘Just a little while longer.’
...

And I sat
And savoured
That precious last silence
With you.

The drive home was a blur of tears and rolling landscape.
You called twice, and both times when your face showed up I couldn’t bear it.
I didn’t want to talk to you.
Didn’t want to hear your voice and relive how it sounded,
when you asked me if I still loved you,
and that despite how I felt
you still loved me.
How your voice broke when you choked on our parting words.
The foolish hope in your voice as you kissed me goodbye on our last day.
I wanted to call the earth to rise up over me.
and pull me under.

Despite our many words,
Our assurances,
I struggled to focus on the road through my sheeting tears,
The words dropping heavily from my lips and falling,
To the pit of my stomach.

‘We are not okay.’

And the lists started writing themselves
In a shudder of memory,
Despite my screaming at them to stop,
They settled in clouds through the air of my car,
Even as I refused them,
My lungs heaving on them,
My heart fluttering.

I pulled over.
I couldn’t see.
I wish I could tell you,
To share with you,
What it took to make me stop.
The tyres slowed to rest
As the sounds erupted from me
I was helpless in the tide.
The thudding of fists on the wheel,
the wracking heaving,
the thin rivers running together into roaring falls.
And
as the storm passed
the thin wail threading through the gathering stillness.

I drifted.

In my dreams he was waiting for me.
I ran to him,
fell into his arms and buried my face into his chest,
my hands like claws gripping him to me.
‘No no no no no no’
I couldn’t stop the words pouring from me, a last desperate refusal,
that I didn’t know the answer.

‘It’s not supposed to go like this, you were meant to stay. You were supposed to be the one! What’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t it work?’

I felt myself separating and heard the pieces of me ****** around our feet.
And you just encapsulated me, warm and golden,
you kissed my crumbling hair.
I couldn’t look at your face,
too afraid
I’d see the cracks forming in your skin.
You didn’t say anything,
just talked without words like you always do,
speaking about a sadness,
a love,
an acceptance.
Peace flowed from you and steadied the ground,
my shaking legs,
my shattering body.
I wept and tried to crack as the warmth held me together
and then,
started to dissipate.

dull ache in my chest
lump in my throat
burning behind my lids

i’m sick

everyday is different
every moment unsure
so fragile

they call you wise
they call you strong
they call you counsellor

i’m sick

no medicine, pills
syrup or formula
will be enough

the need always there
in the darkness
unsatisfied

i’m sick

disregard
feeds the blackened hurt
i embrace it

the disease
seeping seeping
growing

comes out in word
and deed
involuntarily

they know i’m sick

now everyone begins to see
the black empty sorrow
inside me

infecting them

dreams mash together
lurching and pulling
and i see everything

memories
colourless rainbows
pulling at the edges

a liquid song
tuneless familiar
sweetest melody

slipping through
the cracks
wider and wider


the thief is coming


expanding, growing
living rapidly inside me
filling the space

i hear
voice spilling voices
splitting everything

i run
the thief applauds
hands outstretched

escapee digs in
whirling fleeing
desperate in terror


and i’m caught.

gran it’s me, remember?

driving away from you in the late am
i'm running from things i don't want to feel
with every mile i feel the missing
portions of me reaching back to you

i try to be myself as i'm recreated in loving you
i try to sing and the melody sets me free
i'm dancing in the late am
thoughts of you music to my ears

i turn my head because i swear i can feel you
as the traffic lights turn red
there you are, right next to me laughing red
and i break into a grin

i don't know how to be myself again
remade under your gaze
the moment suspends
you're still looking at me smiling

the lights turn
you're away and so am I
driving away from you in the late am

i've tried so hard to erase you
i take someone new to all our places
trying to overwrite you.

the sights and the sounds, the smells
hold onto you relentlessly
and everyone new i bring to hide you
behind new memories
only are tainted by the ghost of you

i can still see you leaning there on the corner
running a hand through your hair
my mind recalls you effortlessly

like you were always a part of the corner
like instead of you clinging to only my world
the world cannot cease to remember you too.

your name is a curse
that i should be too old to be affected by
they say 'you should take the higher ground'
like you haven't buried me
with a youthful smile
deep under your
deceitful charm

and then the day came
that i was caught in a momentum
and i threw back my head and laughed
when your name didn't pop up anymore
and your face was gone from my minds eye
and i breathed the thought out
'he's finally gone'
i expected to feel more
perhaps more grief
new grief
maybe wistful or missing
maybe fierce or triumphant
but i felt nothing
if but a small after-taste of relief
but otherwise there was nothing
and he was nothing
nothing at all