Every one of your droplets
Plopping onto the ground
Carries in itself a different world
Of untold delights and fancies
And horrors. And I choose
Which one I will sink in,
Which one I will unfold,
                                            today.
~

The crystals and diamonds
Drop and dangle, delicately
From the ends of your disheveled hair.
They Carry the sun inside them,
Holding the fragile star
close
In the split-ended hands of
The tangles in your locks.

My rain before leaf in the sunshine
•weeps, my
Love. Fierce love.
~

I see the sun drip from the ends of your hair.
I leap to catch it but your towel soaks it first,
beating me to it.
~

Your hands/your fingers/your palms,
Twined -a vine- delicate and proper
-The one point of softness in you,
I swear-
Around a cigarette that whispers its
Spiral tower wisps
Before it sizzles when you bite it
By accident (you say)
Before it whimpers, and gives-
The best way to die, surely,
To die on the pad of the tip of your
Finger protruding out your
Lovely balmy palm-
Look pretty fab I think! I want
To jump into them
So you can hold me so close
And I can crawl over, unsteady
On new, shortened (further!) legs
To the point on your wrist where
Your heart throbs the most.
In other words,
Be mine.

I don't have a distinct poetic agenda
And I can never recollect accurately in tranquility.
All I am is a voice, but
I want to be a loud one
-Not seeking inspiration
Under every rock laying unturned
With a cosmic universe throbbing
Patiently under it.
I want to lie awake at night,
Vowing not to sleep until I reach my next goal-
I want to have goals
And not be a dreamless drunk;
I want to fly
And not flutter;
I want my wings to melt,
Over and over again,
Day after day,
Until I can build wings strong enough
To hold the heat of the sun
Inside them, and then propel further.
I am not Icarus. I am not
An aimless butterfly.
I am with direction.

Would you love me with blue-stained hands,
in the bleary hours of sand-crusted haste?
Would you love me in oversized sweatshirts and sweaty hairbands,
when I have ink on my fingers and creams on my face?

Would you love me barefoot in splotchy grass,
after my ankles have turned brown and green?
Would you love me when I'm crass and when I'm slacking off in class,
or doodling in the corner of a notebook in a dream?

Would you love me anyway
and, if it's not too much trouble,
would you love me every way?

Would you love me as much in a push-up bra
with red-stained lips and curled (combed) hair,
when I love with all the love I have
in the hope of getting some loving back?

Love me fierce and love me gentle;
Love me till all my love is gone.
hold me close till I am warm.

To trying and failing and trying again
because hope springs eternal
in our foolish hearts.

Burn me still, when you do,
With ink on the pads of my fingers
And with my meter scrawled hastily
On the centre of my ticklish palm,
And let me find my sour/sweet chaos
In the order you placed me into,
For I know now and will ever know;
In the madness, there is love.

I want to write you a poem.
I want to carve it into
Your skin and your flesh
With my pen knife.
-I knew the word pen
Was not in there for nothing.-
I want you to feel the sting of my words
As I drive and drag them
Into your split skin.
I want you to feel the burn of my body,
carving calligraphy
into yours.
I want you to feel my emotions
Running out in blood,
Leaking out of you
In dark, watery cascades.
I want the poison of your kisses
That has spread through my body
To find you again.
I want to write your promises
On the stones I will press
Onto you. So you too
Can feel their o'erburdening weight
The way I did
-and carried, all this time.

I gave him my favourite book
And laughed it off as expanding his "cultural horizons."
I showed him my favourite movie
And shrugged it off as "chillin' and killin' time."
I sent him all my favourite music
But could not write it off as anything
Other than pure devotion.
I want to scoop out
His eyes that read my most beloved works,
His unworthy ears that heard the tunes of my heart,
His awful, ugly smile that enjoyed my dearest film.
And so now here I sit,
With his organs lying before me,
Looking lovelier than on him;
And still, I am not at peace.
The rumbling in my heart, and the twitching in my fingers
Has not stopped.

I dive for his heart;
I will sew it on my sleeve.

You are
The whispering of the sea
Crashing anger at violent shores-
Lapping lovingly at lonely rocks.

You are
The affectionate bite,
And pressed tooth on lip. A brutish
But gentle expression of passion.

You are
The soft murmur of uncertainty,
Rustling against soft skin-
A (lost) exhale of heaving breath.

*Your skin and flesh and bones
Are I think not made of
All the same stuff as mine.

   You are water; you're iron;
   You are whistling wind.
   You're the purest sin
   In which I've ever sunk.

Time dons His thief's mask.
While we count days and hours,
He steals my stopwatch.

This world, of beauty,
lifts myriad vacant skies
for blank world to view.

My lids peel back slow to let another
weary day tackle me to the floor.
I push aside overbearing blankets
and shuffle down an empty hallway
into another more bare than afore.
Dragging my feet seems to require
more power than I had thought before.

Nothing but dark rooms ahead await
dully lit by open ‘fridgerators
that make monster shadows of purple,
frightening paintings that taunt Fate.
The shifting faces mock chance of late.

My reveries halt to disturbance that
a noise from somewhere below brings out.
I breathe deeply in as hope fills me-
a hope of the promise of a frozen mouth.

I think in that breath it is you I hear
rumbling and padding ‘round down the stairs
and I tell myself I am right, for it has to be you;
if it is not, no one else seemingly cares.
Morning breaks open the torment of day
like a ripped wound exposed to salty air.

I swallow back like every day the tears;
wrap myself up in old, cold sit-coms
and warm blankets to banish my fears.
Force myself to endure the hefty bombs
showered at my skull like a falsified norm.

The house lies vacant, in wait of you,
haunted by memories etched on paling skin.
Pacing remains the only thing I can do
to strain against the barrage of pins.

As always, I grin and I jump and I wave
so everyone can see just how brave
I am.
         I am.

But I can’t be anymore
and the salt-water behind my eyes
screams to exit the pores.
I can’t hold them in much longer
and I’m all out of supplies
that keep me stronger
                                      than I am.

I’ve run out of the fog
that my brain runs on, and
my heart condones.

       I have painted on a clown-smile
       and I'm quelled inside, flat.
All that is left in me now
is a crushed can of cola
shoving hard at my ribcage.

I am waiting still and know for sure
all will be as it was in times of yore.

Your heart is ice,
but my hands can be fire,
I promise.
                just stay.
I can melt through you-
let me hold you,
and take the pain
                              away.
But I can't help but leave
destruction in my wake.
I'm burning up
                          our days.

Love* tastes like beauty, devotion and affection, rolled into a wafer together.

Love is the beauty of the vain, lone rose of the wild,
fading on the skin of your arms like a lotion.

Love is the devotion of watery jasmine and apples,
running smoothly down the back of your throat.

Love is the affection of thick, chocolatey hazelnuts,
dying so they can remain for everafter on the tip of your tongue.

the sweet, smoky taste of Love rubs in your limbs and your veins
until it is one with your blood and is the only thing you feel.

You devour Love, but it consumes you.

I sit on a droopy windowsill and gaze out
at the stars above me in the stately sky of coal.
I let the smoke fill me, pollute my corrupted lungs,
‘til it plugs me, completely consumes my sticky soul,
and midnight sorrow blanket hugs the heart in my hole.

I sit and I consider the sky
with its million-and-one jewels
that adorn the vast carpet of night
and its one, lone cloud that slowly drools
fat, drippy drops of deep fed'ral blues.

The ashy, burnt taste is still in my throat;
it lingers- a dull, cloying candy cane.
The muted flavour chokes and jabs and pecks
persistently, in the back of my brain
and leaves a steel blue/gray trailing stain.

Vague memories of fourth-grade English lessons
take me with a deep sigh to forgotten thoughts
of Roger McGough and unrequited love-
dazed recollections of school poetry taught
in obscure slate-blue classrooms, littered with blots.

It seems feeling unreturned affection
isn't quite as great as I’d thought after all.
I must've been wrong, all those hazed years ago,
when I yearned to feel unrequited love’s fall,
convinced it would be a wondrous, dazzling ball

Instead, I'm just ******* in the pale-ing sky
that seems to be growing into lighter hues-
the navy’s turned to electric, to powder,
matching the sapphire in my soul of glue.
I'm suppose I'm feeling somewhat, slightly blue.

.

My body runs on anger
what shall I do with despair?
I am uncertain of how
to handle gloom and sorrow

my body runs on anger
I’ve no use of thee, despair
so out with you, oh, fowl cow
and return to the dark of below

what did this to you, my strong one?
what reduced you to such a state
so cold and pale and weak and frail
as though someone didst sedate..
wake! wake! I cannot take the wait.

you, never meek, who forbade me to weep
how can you lie so, with no trace of life?
I choked at the sight
but did not shed a single tear
I did not, I promise, not even one

the needles and pipes and tubes and pins
cover every available inch of skin
no stretch of wrinkled flesh remains unprobed
icy skin makes my blood to fire akin

vile, putrid bile rises in my throat_
wretched sorrow, arointh thee!
-I cannot handle woe.

The Sun, red as night’s carnage
crashes down
As colours bleed deep blues
and mix into the wave’s crown.

Sky’s witch in raging fury
fingers down
Bright bolts of light that crash
And melt into grey; they drown.

Grey shards, pelting like bombs
Forks falling ‘to an abyss
Flailing, floundering they drop into blue
But the hue seems to drown them in bliss.

The sky’s beams breathe bright beads
Yellowing the neon string
sinking with the thundering rain that feeds
A large and hungry monstrous thing.

Sky runs down to see the sea
sisters bound and still so free
while the roaring thunder laughed
dark closed its jaws ‘round the sun.

The sky’s a light carnelian’s shade
and, as the brightness starts to fade,
from carnelian to carmine he turns, too-
soft to vivid tones of the hue.
Looks into the ‘windows to my soul,’
     (‘windows to one’s soul’ he called them)
The intensity nearly swallows me whole-
his windows a pair of solitary gems.
Eyes the colour that fire should be,
a fury to turn flames green with envy.

So as carnelian turns to carmine
and the heavens light up with his glow,
a firefly’s brightness is overshadowed,
but the yellow is whitened down in snow

A lone, saphhired rhododendron in full bloom
unaware of its death in a pluck so soon

The furious ball of rage sets
and us (three!) need to return
-a lingering gaze for a moment too long,
cheeks of crimson and burn!
For too long have we tarried,
our hours have wasted the day
Find no longer a reason
nor any excuse to stay

Peer over the edge a last time
     (indecision, in control)
At the vast expanse of cerulean, sublime
     (pause to contemplate my goal)

Tucks the blooming rhod’ between a lock and an ear,
breathes, “it looks prettier still here,”
for another second holds ( ) near
and in parting’s ‘sweet sorrow’ starts to disappear

A gunshot echoing, a resounding sound,
as he turns away from the mead’.
His body slowly hits the ground,
and I know I’ve killed him dead.
For the first time, a lamenting tear’s grace
rolls down one side of my face
and all I see is red.


A gunshot, a second time, lying in bed,
*brow, hair, pillow- all soaked in red.