Black Cat sits there like the lion by
the bridge I'm always over and he oozes
cement from his eyes but he's not crying.

Old Rug stands up and his old bones
creak and his jacket is made of brick dust,
he brushes himself off and makes a storm cloud.

Taps begin to run and so do I but
neither of us knows who's chasing who but
they laugh and someone answers a door.

Curtains close and the old foundations
set again, I'm still running but there
he has his windows shut and I am breakable.

Scattered Cushions hug me and it's awful.
they've got me in a pillowed choke hold
and they begin to build around me

but my feet just keep on going

The shoreline bites at the toes of attendees,
watching the little appendages curl up together.
The footprints there have been etched into fossils,
the sand crunching together and sounding like
echoes of war cries and whispered endearments.

The raft is loaded. The time is traced.
A caterpillar in a chrysalis hums a love song,
glows with the light of ‘vita vita vita’ as
the gathering crowds taste dead languages.
Children eat from lunch boxes carved with runes.

Sometimes a glipse of twenty years is caught,
a journal is forced open by the wind; it’s pages
creak, the voices from the world's coffins
that have been wrenched open start a hymn
and the songs pile up in our ears as dust.

Those who are do not mourn titter respectfully
as men in white coats try to push the raft
into the water, but you were so lovably stubborn.
You always returned and even here you knew it;
your final laugh was filtered through sign language.

I step forward and push, float you off into
the water, put my fingers over the candle and
over the lips of dead kings as masses shoot the sky.
The match roars and your raft gasps as it burns,
old things being laid to rest and new ones kindling.

I've been too selfish and kept you
tied into knots on my tongue, or
kept you caged up in the cell structure
of my brain, like an Anglo-Saxon
relic you see the interweaving and
I did that to you, to never let it go.

But, to be fair, people like you tend
to find it reasonable to steal my breath
and not return it, which I do find quite
rude but I'll just pretend you're homeless
and it's only fair to let you keep the warmth,
you might not have enough come winter.

So maybe we'll make up an agreement,
I'll keep your name and give it to
the cat to play with, along with my tongue.
And you can take from me whatever you want,
make a game looking for the missed heartbeats,
use my flat line as a skipping rope.

It was a romantic dream you had
that we'd wake up to birdsong together,
but you turned them into your sirens
and sung your battle cry from the shower
as I prepared for you to finish up
and start our breakfast warfare.
With a mock shooting action you
presented soldiers and pretended to
throw eggs like grenades, so it made
sense you told me they were your speciality.
I would choose the non violent option,
obviously, but always ended up wincing
into my coffee that you made, too strong
so that I'd bruise my lips as I drank.
A 'labour of love' you called it, trying
try to trade a kiss for morning vitamins
or to soothe the bruises on my mouth.
I'd fend you off with a teaspoon, drop
sugar cubes in my cup like bombs.
I could only smile your way if I held
a croissant upside down over my mouth,
but you always had a smile because
you loved our breakfast warfare.

He is a force of nature. I'm usually too
scared to react to people, if I'm alone, but
I did then 'cause I was sat on my own and
he seemed to take that as a good omen.
I was waiting for someone, as ever,
sitting and thinking about **** like how  
some artists work better when they're drunk.
And a picture you start with improves so,
with a picture like this standing there,
you'd call it dappled gold, like cider
or with clarity like a martini if
getting ****** on your own was romantic.
But by this point, with the drinks I'd had,
he could have had any face or form
and I still would have danced with him.
There was no romance in this.
He decided to stop dancing at some point,
apparently he dislikes the things that
are good for us. He'd say dark stuff like that.
'What's the point in your tomorrow?' like
he'd prefer to think about my yesterdays.
Whatever happened in between this time
and the time it took to get me outside
must have been boring as **** because
he watched me light a cigarette, eyes
huge  and saying nothing, apart from
'when will you stop flirting with me?'
because I asked him to dance again.
I checked, told him I had twelve
cigarettes left and no sense of self
preservation.

I think of love and how it can only exist
In your dreams as I trace their remnants,
Made feasible by the dim light of morning
Which is both drooping and waving, prepared.

I think of love and how it can only exist
In the shutter images of your unfocused eyes,
More like weather than windows, clouded
By morning with showers of yawns.

I think of love and how it can only exist
As our bed is a forest, the stirring of your
Body I follow like footpaths lit by sun,
Patches of light on us like puddles.

I think of love and how it can only exist
As it is etched into your face, those
Pillow case creases that makes me the
Cheekbone cartographer and I think

Of love and how it can only exist
In this dream of mine.

Living it up in a HB dream,
Scribbled house sturdy as a pencil,
This token of a childhood memory.

House. Family, dinner, empty plate.
Ghost in the attic. Cat on the lawn.
Four out of five smiles.

Playground. Friends. Unused seat
On the swing set congregation.
Pencil case protection from the ground.

Classroom. Listeners, artists, mathematicians.
Glaring absence note. An echoing drawer.
Raised hand at the back too far away.

This crayola madness is draped out
In ribbons, strewn carelessly over
An invitation. The dotted lines blur so

The pencil shading, the artistic peak,
Has gone too far, now it's translucent.
This invitation goes to the imaginary friend.