i want to
be the thing
you twirl
between
your fingers

it's hard living in a house in which
you're never welcome.
watching the foundations for a new family
being cemented into the ground
whilst you're still sat among
the burning embers of the last one, alone.
it's hard knowing that you're living
in a time before all of this,
but at the same time embracing
the other side of it.
one half smouldering and the other
a house by the sea, waves crashing, birds singing.
split into two; two sides, two families,
neither the one you remember.

1468

A winged spark doth soar about—
I never met it near
For Lightning it is oft mistook
When nights are hot and sere—

Its twinkling Travels it pursues
Above the Haunts of men—
A speck of Rapture—first perceived
By feeling it is gone—
Rekindled by some action quaint

she's tired, sitting there
with a cigarette between her lips
that trembles as she shivers.
her brain is frozen, fixated
on that one memory of him
smiling and lighting
the cigarette between her grinning teeth.
the sensation used to bring her solace
on dark, cold nights like this.
but now,
now she sits there, tired,
for ours on end; an unlit
cigarette hanging there,
waiting for him.

lay with me, and look down
across mountains and ridges
in the blankets.
we can make tectonic plates move
just by shifting our legs
so that another part of our bodies
is touching.
we are capable of more than we know;
we are giants to ants,
able to change so much by
doing so little.
the shifting of a leg,
the whisper of words.
we can do anything.
we can move mountains
in the blankets.

when she was younger,
she stumbled and fell whilst running
from the boys
playing kiss chase in the park.
she sat there for a moment,
staring at the crimson scrape
on her left knee,
and bit back the tears.

years later, drunk,
she stumbles and falls whilst running
from the man
insisting on playing "kiss chase".
she refuses.
she sits and watches the blood
turn into a waterfall on her shin,
and lets the tears fall.

everywhere i go, i've got my phone in my hand.
everything i do is documented
recorded in a profile for the world to see,
just for my own memory.
i plug myself in, charge up, and go,
selfies and tweets and reblogs galore
as i go about my life like a character
whose storyline is already in place.
my character arc is part of the way through,
and to complete it, i suppose,
i must stay connected.