They sat across the room from each other
Mother and daughter, alike in appearance
“Don’t you remember?” the mother said
And for that moment
The perfect image of the daughter’s previous world sat there
Fossilised.

Stand in an open field and
tear out
the pages of your favourite book
and leave them
to the wind.

Underline the words for people to
find and read and
love
and leave you to wonder if they
noticed them at all.

Imagine a universe with no galaxies, no planets, no stars, no meteors, no satellites, no moons.
A vast blackness.
Nothing to grow.
Nothing to become.
A never-ending emptiness
in which you're forced to survive.

My heart is a cracked egg spilling into my lungs,
wrapping around my organs.
Dripping,
suffocating,
drowning.
Filling my toes, feet, calves, thighs.
Clogging my capillaries
until I cannot breathe.
Until it bursts its banks
and abounds the bathroom tiles.

You dominate every second of my day and every dream in the night. My heart constricts and expands, constricts and expands, quicker and quicker to the sight of your face behind my eyes.

And there, you blossom.

Your eyes are not eyes; they speak words unspoken. They are frosted glass windows transparent only to me.

Your cheeks are not cheeks; they glow and paint warmth through my limbs, my organs, my lips, until we are luminous.

Your arms are not arms; they are illustrations of your depth and through them you could be no one else.

Your brain is not a brain; it is a galaxy of passion, enchantment, optimism and adventure. I am engulfed by you.

And all I experience is wonder.

Laura plays her beautiful song,
Sings her beautiful tune.
The rain is falling on this August afternoon,
And I can only see that things are wrong.

Marling you’re making me think,
I’ve let go of what should be mine.
Darling, come back to me one more time.

My signals have been mixed.
I’ve given you different ideas.
But I can’t turn my back,
I can’t face these tears.

I’ve been feeling the kind of loneliness
that can only be cured
by someone who can wash away all anxiety and fear with their eyes
by someone whose arms make you warmer than any sun or star
by someone whose voice soothes you until you are in a dreamland
whose laugh permeates even the toughest skin
and fills every crevice with something light and wholesome.
It’s a craving that nothing can satisfy.
It’s unusual and I cannot shake it.

I turn over the pages.
Fold the corners to remember.
Feathers.
I trample through the rest
Of this anthology.
Try to rip and tear to forget.
Concrete.

My sledgehammer is rubber
And my drill is sponge.

The wind is a thief
And my tools are blunt.

She’s at a loss.
Her voice quietens, weakens.
She’s not herself.
She’s been transformed, absorbed into someone else.

She’s a fishing boat in a stormy sea.
Stormy then calm.
Stormy then calm.
Her mind is a whirlwind of easy offences.
She is a pit of jealousy;
a lustful late-teen.
Her mind is a television
broadcasting her desires:
Eight red lines upon a pale back,
Shoulders indented with two curved rows
from clenched teeth.
Morse code embossed on sweet flesh.
Love bites around *******,
on thighs, on buttocks.

A fictional programme.

Turn fiction into non-fiction
and rescue her mind; a mere sailor.
Reach the shore and rescue her.
Find her again.
Find her voice, her strength.
Evaporate the stormy sea and leave her,
wholly herself.

You're not floating around the constellations.
You're knee-deep in cold, dank mud.
The walls around you peel
and the clock's batteries have died.
In a minute there is time
to do nothing but wait.

I'm a fly in the space between your skull and your brain.
I'm that tickling feeling and that restless irritant.
The grass around you grows
and you begin to lose your sight.
In a minute there is time
to decide whether to take a bite
and spit me out
or let me lay my eggs.

You were born at midnight between two years,
as the moon reflected the world opposite.
In a minute there is time
to create a division between two entities.
In a minute there is time
to change what would be into what is.

I wake in the night
and find your thirsty lips against mine.
I’m blind and you are an unknown city.
My hands trail your walls, pavements, trees
and my mouth tastes your air.
You are not polluted; you are the countryside;
your fields are vast and open.
I have no sense of direction.
I am lost in you
and I see nothing but adventure.

We met five years ago
We cared about nothing

Dressed in a towel I kissed you once
I watched you disappear

We are each other's ghosts
We hold each other's memory

My ghost, you are there
And I am waiting