It’s the thought of your cigarette smoke.
Which cracks through the gaps in your teeth,
and into the hollows of your lips -
becoming so coarse because they are soft.

Clouds of your grey
pollute my eyes.
And you hide behind it until
it has threaded through my every pore
and into my tongue as I swallow into my gut.
I savour as if it was you that I inhaled.

I drown in that somber ocean
of your lighter in the side pocket of your trench,
and the packet which you dig from out your jeans.

As you breath
smoke flows into my ear - pollutes them
With late nights you spend alone.
A half dry pen on tea stained paperd notebooks
that are buried under paperclips and mangled headphones.
The sound as you force, pelting creased paper into the fire.
and tears which drip out onto your sweater.
and echoes of dying guitar strings
that can no longer bare the abuse you show them these nights
when the words and notes won’t kiss.like you want them to.

As it drips down through my gut
I taste the rasp smell of your cologne in the morning
after the rain wastes it off in the morning.
Along with the taste of salt that you drench every word in.

The smoke evaporates from my view.
I stare at your bones glowing under an orange street light..
Your eyes hollow,
eaten up by the shadows and I wonder
if you are in front of me.

Or if I only recognised the familiar grey clouds
- that once hid my blue sky.

What was it about omnipresence that appealed to me

so much that I destroyed myself -

one mountain at a time, one boundary at a time -

until the alarms stopped going off at breaches?

The magpies don't sing when they're sad, so what am I

when I laugh at myself for crying?

Who am I looking for when my pillows waft voiceless lullabies

from a bed half-empty? (half yours, half mine,

and I don't know which one's missing.)

What was it about hedonism that disgusted me

so much that my body rejected kindness -

every peace offering, every affectionate touch -

until it could no longer hold itself together?

Metaphors, like escaped prisoners, running for a life anywhere that isn't here,

anywhere that isn't me,

and I fold and break into myself

in muted, nondescript implosions.

My mind was darkly resisting in despair,
Do not deem that I had been simply ingrate.
It was because your loss was always very near
And you were too generous even when you left.

You left for me here some memories of you,
A fabulous impromptu to feel you all the time.
Bestowed the crucial drive of being myself
And left inside - deepest - a bit meaning of life...

You are the lovely girl of a joyful family,
The love surrounded you let you be merciful,
But I had been on the battle side of this life
Fighting hard before all became remorseful

I sacrificed with my own hands the last solution,
You know, when you are hurt, I do not bare
Yet I am distracted by your delusion
And the peace of mind I can't find anywhere

(On a line from Mandelstam - 'I have learned the science of parting')

There was so much we never did together,
places to go and visit hand in hand,
so much we could have learned about each other,
so many things to say before goodbye.

Nobody ever knew how much I suffered;
but by applying all the skills I'd learned
I always coped. My strategies were successful;
the ache of separation always eased.

So many times the same has happened to me,
but every time the pain returns anew.
Just as intense, although it's so familiar,
regret comes like a band around my heart.

Falling in love, each time's a new experience;
the same thing goes for learning how to part.

Once we were friendly.
Then we were more than friends.
Now there is nothing.
Must this be how it ends?

you thread words
into a ball
which I mistook
for a heart

Every morning I wake up
To an empty bed and an empty phone
Every morning I remember
That you aren't here anymore

I'm left with an empty feeling
In the pit of my stomach
And an empty future
Where our plans used to be

They say it gets better
That one day there won't
Be this gaping hole inside
Where I had you

But I just don't think
That I believe them
I don't think I'll ever
Be whole
Again

it’s windy I think
at least the windows are rattling

the men in hard hats
yellow motes in the distance
and their jackets the colour
of poison

they scale the façade
of the contralateral building

they’re speaking, yelling,
probably catcalling, singing
their ugly songs on cherry pickers
like some crowned nest
of wagtails

it’s early I think
though the lights are always on

they’re fluorescent, staining
unflattering colouration – rinse
your skin to poverty
to jaundice

I’m here because of pills
I’m here because school is out
I’m here because I’m tired
and I’m tired because of you

flowers sit at the side
already dry upon purchase

gifted awkwardly:
“can we give flowers to a man?”
“a foolish drunk”
“a boy in sheets”
“here’s a helium balloon
to lift your spirits”
“don’t look when it sags to the floor”
“you know that he will”

it’s lonely I think
though it’s filled with people

wristcutter, lupus, chemo,
we’re what’s left post-production
“buy me for half price
or at least half an hour of company”

nurses scan with motherly eyes
radiator warmth - at twelve to three
she washes me, asks me to lift my *****
to get at the two-day grime
of indolence

it’s sad here I think
at least the television is boring

daytime ghosts and broken families
make my bed-sheets gain weight
until nothing is mine

sleep comes in fits
and starts in blindness

it ends with my questioning
of where the dream began
and where reality failed

you haven’t come
I knew that you wouldn’t

it’s hard to blame you
what with my post-use pining
long after you’d given up
the way I act familiar
after treating you like a stranger

I long to leave here
so much that the windows are rattling

I’m here because I am
I’m here because of my job
I’m here because I’m tired
and I’m tired because of you