Hanging out my fresh washed sheet,
I'm whiter. I forgot to eat.

Enough,
I think I seem I am I think I am
enough,
I think,
I am not pretty.
as beautiful as water (from a tap)
but enough
of a pile of human teeth,
not grown-up but grown
from troubled daughter
(far enough from little brat)
so please, no need to look underneath
the words I say-
that's quite enough.
I think I seem I am I think
I am okay.

There is little I prefer to the sensation of his planting two kisses
on the top of my head before sleeping.

Only now do I realise how funny planting a kiss seems,
as if all kisses are capable of growing
and if we wake up one morning
with our pillows filled with roses
we'll know that they grew from those night-time kisses.

Still, flat hands
tick time away,
filling up boxes,
making empty space.

I don't know this form
and who it is for,
only to still, and to stay,
and to wait and to count-

the passing clouds
each passing hope-  

hope for time, hope none is waste,
hope whatever it is was worth the wait-

but then there is more time
and there is more space.

It's a long time to wait
and still to see
only one still, flat clock face.

All that time spent on trains, wandering,
wondering until I knew
I've never really had a place to call home.
I found it in you
with no need to be sorry
somewhere I am welcome to come back to.
There is dust on my shoes from a different place
and dirt in the graze I got on one of my knees
when we went out climbing trees.
(It left a scar that looks like grace.)

Outside, golden hands make the light change colours.
Hypnos tells me it’s okay; I tell him I’m fightless.
Cold daylight chews me into nighttime pieces
and perhaps if I tell the sun what I’m reading it will stay a little longer.

Everything past the window is uneven and loud like the ocean,
melancholy and pointed, all knees and fists and teeth.
September falls into October and paper stays paper,
though it used to be trees somewhere in the sun,
but the real truth is that there is emptiness in everything, not just beds.

October is coming in like a train whose whistle echoes for days,
an old steam engine with one hundred thousand windows,
whole rooms for watching time but no space for little tides, big blinks,
or eating up a list of books I must read before I turn twenty-five.

Light retires with a soporific goodnight and all that is left is a dearth of sleep,
imaginary owls and other big-eyed birds contemplating stars.
Morning will sound like breathless trees stretching new leaves,
clouds whirling, tiny winds darting through my sheets until I am grey again.
Sleep is just dust and I hate feeling filthy.