Came I hither with all the gold possess'd,
Came I hither with all the wisdom gain'd,
Came I hither with all the truth and jest,
Beauty, health, kindness, luck, thou'd'st have complain'd
That I came hither with an underhand
Desire of something greater thus exchang'd,
Unable to conceive or understand
How one who offers free is not derang'd.

Came I hither with all the gold possess'd,
And came I bearing rubies and pearls, too,
Came I hither bearing all the rest
To thine own mortal self, still erring true;
Came I hither, and ask'd nothing, giving
All that I have, and more, and still I err,
For the Lord ask'd nothing of the living,
But sacrifice is matter of a cur.

Mistrusting as you do, with sense, I see,
Love's made not for this world, nor I for thee.

I went home today, straight after work
Because your curtains were closed
And although I didn't struggle with the quirk
Of thinking "But maybe..." (not really), hosed
Down with sobriety, I wondered at the darkness,
The loneliness, the determination (nose to grindstone,
Nose to grindstone), and with less than sharpness
I went home, nearly straight after work, and left you alone
And I left memories of another girl somewhere -
Possibly in your curtains - but you wouldn't care
To know that I no longer think, "I couldn't look him in the face" -
I now ask if I will be able to look at myself, in no one's place.

The end of last year, and the beginning of this
Spell something like suspense, a familiar kiss
Upon both my frostbitten cheeks, Hello.
These are chaste waves now, at your window:
Barren is the land of my hand, I write nothing,
And I hope for nothing, still carrying
A foreign slogan by my heart for one
I dedicated my deeds to, who's gone
With my writing, since my girlhood arrived
And said she was here to stay, contrived
To do so until we thaw, until limbo
Passes over, until someone says, Hello,
And I answer. Because I don't want anything
Except, maybe, just not to want anything.

I put up an advertisement
"WANTED: A handsome man
To play the villain of the tale."
I was in earnest in this wail -
My play is falling as it can
Apart, in disestablishment.
I didn't think you'd laugh or like
My addition - "I don't need one
Personally." Well, I don't, no,
I don't need one, but if you'd show
A wish for consideration,
I'd love a hero on a fixed-gear bike.

Someone burns their vision of the world
In Western leaves some factory somewhere curled
And leaves the stump to burn upon the green
Where ducks and frogs make their domain,
And drops the package, too, still cellophaned,
Venom for the worms, a note to the society who brained
You - I see your disaffection's ribbon in the grass
And know I feel it, too, and yet, alas,
By all the powers that be, I know,
That I must be the change I want to show.

I became Holmes, past knowing true:
In every sense, I'd seek for you.

Now, taking the cobbles consciously,
Sick, mad, of the essence of this construct,
Dismantling the ancien régime to see
That I am all your stains in concert -

I am made up of every last touch -
Originality's a lie, save in
The combination that you see - as such
It is unique, but I still cave in

At the dawn that nothing is my own,
And much like as if you were a coffee
I'd downed: I could not, for my life, disown
The five million senses cutting me

For the time, for every conscious cup
I'd take and take again: Why should I dull
And cut myself this way, a life made-up
Of such a tannin-full ideal?

My way as a writer is to fall
In love, in my eyes, in yours, in raptures,
In despair, in tough crowds, on God, to call
On my muse and survive the ruptures

Of worlds and heavens, both real and made,
And feel the rain upon my face, but Lord,
How often do I feel, and feel the raid,
Engaged by scent, blush, needle, salt, word?

All too much makes nothing, and I can't flee
To seek another cup: I must seek me.

No markings to paper
Merely a personal choice
Unravelling rhythm guitar
And shore and off-shore voice;
Alice said, Alice said, Alice said,
And my mind opened, and I
Walked home thinking, why
Do I live by what the cradle read,
In extremes, and why do I
Not deserve to do better?
Why don't I burn every last letter
For every time I didn't cry?
All this holding, holding back,
When the "baby" twists and coils
To bite what some consider spoils
And I look at myself wearing black,
And red, and a man's coat,
So I can forget who forgot.

Yeah, I know I have no claim
Upon you or on your time
And the seconds walk by, lame,
And I pen another rhyme
About how painful it remains
To be the what-the-hell-ever.
It wasn't that I didn't wake
With my good friend by my side
It wasn't that I didn't make
The pancakes, or I tried
To refocus on my gains
Or whatever the hell ever
To remember to fail
To recall you exist
To laugh, not to pale,
At the wish to be kissed
And how stupid are the pains
Of being the what-the-hell-ever.

So, what's your downfall, he asked?
And I tell him, I'm not tasked
With losing my hopes in a flask,
Or tangled sheets, or to bask
In false lights of powders foreign,
Though it would seem my creed, I know,
By much my brethren showed and show;
I am an artist, I plead guilty to the crime,
Of being here to ask you to waste your time
To try to understand my ramblings on my pain
And then to waste and waste your time again
Hoping you can see something more
Of everything that comes before
Your eyes when you're not wasting time
Upon this crazy pantomime
I place before you: I bleed, yes,
And hope to give you life in all this mess.

I was never good at avoiding pain
It is what comes from placing faith
And why I do something so vain
When I can't know that there is ground beneath
I can't tell you, but I can recount
How my days are nothing until
I hear from you, and then I count
Another age until you will
Show me something I think is love.
I don't know what makes me depend
On knowing this; perhaps I could dream of
Stopping and do it, too, but rend
My heart in three rather than that I
Should let your claim upon me die.

Gaze at me, with you ever-so-slight smudged lipstick
Pop-punk lyrics issuing from your perfect mouth
Dark circles from the khôl and folly
Forgiveness from your youth
Torsion of perfection into a wry smile
Sober, you say, drunk, who'll walk upon my style?
Who'll dare? I dare, in laying bare, ballet hands,
The contents of my *****; You know, friends,
I may be an actress, and pretentious,
But my ability to lie's contentious.

The anger's in my cheeks
The words aren't in my mouth
I know like I have for weeks
Everything's only going south
If I stay to hear you say
Another word of your fanatic way
You cannot be wrong, sir
Your stance is on fleek
Your shoulders are strong, sir
But your logic is weak
And I know the ins and the outs and the world
And I'm sitting and spitting with my fists curled
Oh yes, oh yes, you have got the answer
But haven't you heard, you're not the new cancer?
I'm mincing my tongue, you're not mincing yours
And I know that my knowledge is worth just two straws
Wise men ask the fool
And they all sit and drool
But I burn in my anger
At how you don't know hunger.

A quiet getaway for two, a co(a)st,
Yeah, but how about, we skip the other?
And, if you "love", why don't I let you roast
With the other marshmallows, and wither
In your blissful lack, blind lust, busy life
Of red velvet and dollars? In my chair,
All the "love" I need to know is the strife
Of strings and sticks and synth and sliding air;
Give me Skull Candy, and my own fiddle,
Give me my view across the painted sky,
Give me my freedom to be a riddle,
Give me the chance to dance and still defy.
I'm not your pretty girl, nor femme fatale,
And if you fall, know you will really fall.

Frozen joints in a Georgian garret
Grudgingly stirring the fifth peasant soup
Shuffling shiftingly to share it
As lower eyelids, sleepless, hang and droop.
A right for some, a job in lands abroad
The luxury of learning dearly bought
And dearly payed for, still stalwartly moored
And chained with a ball, for living, sought.
I payed for a train to take me back
To the passion that will make a slave of me
But the company never had my back:
For two more score they would yet have of me.
What country fit for heroes is this?
What cradle for young hearts and minds make we?
And cushioned by the green stuff, dismiss
My wish that you may go where you take me.

My hands were stained with beetroot
My hands were sour with lemon
My hands were salt from cabbage
As I cried in your defence
"He would have kissed me on the steps
If I'd looked up, if I were not such a fool
The cue was there, you know
When he asked about my necklace."
I always wondered, so now
Where's this bold solution from?
And she said, were you a man
I wouldn't have to look.

I wish you understood how cool I can be
When I'm not hiding my eyes from what I perceive
To be the sun shining from yours
I wish you could see the nonchalant posts
I write when I'm hoping you're there with the ghosts
It's me who is the one so out of doors
Because I'm now tapping at the windows
Like the Dickensian kid I'm not
And that is how my sin flows
From wounds that cannot clot
Stem, stem, but I'm a social scientist
And not enough to be of interest
Of keeping myself to myself:
I need you to look up to my shelf.

I wish you understood how wanted I am
When I am chasing after the success-bound tram
Not the tail of your shooting star
I wish you could see how I'm queen of the sidewalk
The subject of everyone's gaze and idle talk
When my eyes aren't burning the West, so far
Because I'm now singing on street corners
Like the desperate artist I'm not
I wish my luck was like Jack Horner's
Would the Plum Land please be my lot?
Wait, wait, but I know I'm not life's patient
And too much to match your gradient
To be keeping myself to myself:
I need you to look up to my shelf.

I'm not falling off, but I could
I could call it off, but I would
Rather win please, even though
I concede I am losing,
And it's highly confusing
The way I go on with the show.

'Cos I'm now writing stupid letters
Like the complaining tenant I'm not
Counting you... the highest of my betters
And believe me there aren't a lot
Stop, stop, but maybe I'll write something good
And sufficient to get a Laureatehood
'Cos I'm not keeping myself to myself:
I need you to look up to my shelf.

These days in budgeted decadence
You twist on your thrifted finery
And leave me to mine own
You are children marching the cobblestones
Like soldiers into lines that you know very
Little of, together and alone
Collective and individual struggles fought
Black coffee for the morning
Ethanol for some inky hour after twelve
None of your souls have been bought
Yet, and I hope they won't in the true dawning
From the cutting of the safety net, may you delve
Into futures sufficient and abundant,
All ye heirs apparent.

It is literally only the cold now that bothers me:
I can hug my knees, feel warmth of the bowl of curry
That I warmed up for me and my girls. You fall in love
And I fall behind, I fall back. Move on and move
In and marry, sweet and twenty as you are, sweet and loving
As you are, who don't listen to Infinity on High shoving
The irony into the backseat, gazing at the lyrics' memories
Like a postcard collection on a corkboard. Ryan Ross could have cursed at me,
And I could have cursed like Kellin Quinn, but these are dead times now
To beat down with a combat boot in moving, as I row
With my personal indifference to the candles and the wedding bouquets,
To the political matches passing me by, the parties of croquet
That I decline to program, combat boots ever on the road,
On the road to being Her, a still concept without a goad
Towards what the fairytales say I should be - I'm a pop punk song:
I take no prisoners: Your definition's wrong.

What, when my intellect was too much,
And brash beauty too little?
And I seemed cool to all touch,
Made of paper and spittle
Like the wasp's nest that I am
And admit it now, I do,
And goodness how I own it too,
"They do not like green eggs and ham."
You've got the wrong end of the tale:
I'm caviar, champagne, and bread,
But I, alas, am not for sale,
And I give love freely from my head.
What, when my name is written in the stars,
Will you remember how you said I had it all
And still was not enough? Could you curse scars
That never felt a wound, and fall
From a tree you never climbed? You fool,
You wise fool, for your ignorant wisdom,
And your Fortune's shroud is still my chrysom,
Yet for my rising are you still the ghoul,
And ever will be. And still, live unhurt,
For how could you know disappointment
From one who you never gave appointment
And opportunity to commit such a curt
And curious crime? As how could you know,
Inert as you are, the blessings that could rain
On you, who are so averse to pain,
That you wouldn't risk letting Eden go?
How can you laud or regret,
That which you did never get?

If only I knew "mind over matter" in my heart
I should not be paying for my youthful sins
And my transgressions stand apart
From others, because I do not know the outs and ins
Of bars and flesh, but rather human character
And the confines of my mind

If only I knew that "a stitch in time saves nine"
As well as I know my hometown blind
How in my soul I knew that I would dine
Upon the mould of fruits of being kind
To nothing bearing even a love's spectre
I threw all warnings to the Wynd

And over the summer I have gained a new coat
I shun the cold of loneliness and pain
I seek not to hide from the iodine
Troubles no longer merit building a moat
I smile in the face of lions
I can take defeat upon my chin
I do not know its name within
Tomorrow ever has only more scions

But my sins come back to haunt me
The old moat crumbled inward, letting me know
I still look on his face, and it does daunt me
That I must pick up my tools that I may grow
Because the damage doesn't go, it only festers
To bite back later when I think I'm fine
Even with the mood of ten-score jesters
Taking down Hell is much a task divine.

“Whilst often I do have the guts to write
Outrageous verse to pin for all to see
I sometimes do wish that on such a night
There might yet be some guts left within me
To write something that just you’d understand
Something that speaks and signs a tune unread
Tales of a time of no such “upper hand”
Notes of life within those once thought dead
And something realer than this pretend verse shows
In all its mad combining and design
Song text written down for modern freak shows
A paean for a thing that isn’t mine.”

Wrote the poet to the singer, who was in bed,
And who sighed in annoyance, and left him on read.

Who am I, who lost so much to Love,
And lose much to Him still?
I stood on a pedestal above,
And crashed down from the windowsill.
Who am I, that for His sake lose time,
And wit, and manners, I,
Who could have given more to rhyme
That served me better? Fie!
Fie, fie, madam, rest your powers,
Deny that in those fruitless hours
You didn't sit by the radiator,
Cold for your lack of care, and to the heart,
Beaten by your own stern cruelty?
How like a gladiator
You sought your doom, for a greater part,
Called idle indulgent torture "duty"?
Deny the useless minutes spent
Searching for a sign in nothing.
Defy the fact, intently bent,
That you made Chaos "something".
Oh I, who on my knees did weep,
And sometimes dreamt revenge
Upon the object that my sleep
Abhorred, isn't it strange,
That all the blame in all this head-long history,
Should rest upon the wounded, me?
Because I cannot help but choose to love,
As my heart's mistress, though my fancies move
According to their spheres, but I
Could be less cruel to her whose hand does feed me,
I could be my own knight and wave imagined scoundrels
Into air, much less dream and die
Upon the sword I meant to cut the heart that could precede me
And mine. Life, I thought, gave me the mandrels,
But truth be so - Eros, oh errors,
I have bent my back in your service,
And by my own will,
For loved I truly, I should be whole still.

What manner of a man is he,
Forgetting all the pain that he
Once caused a lady, thinks he's free
To ask, in no small words, "Love me"?

What manner of a lady, she,
Misreading a man's friendly plea
Asking comfort and company,
Compassion, is laughing freely?

No one's right, and no one's wrong,
She's a coquette, and he's not strong,
He's no fool, and she's no fox,
You can't fit either in a box.

What manner of a person, they
Who beat about the bush all day,
Who beat about the bush, that they,
Lose sight of all the truth?

What manner of a life is this?
She's merely waiting for a kiss,
He's waiting for Nirvana's bliss:
Arrested by hurt, pride, and youth.

"I tried hard to be useful, but no dice"
No, you're right, it's not dice I'm calling for
For Law's a game of chess, it isn't nice:
To blame it all on chance is prison-poor.
We know exactly what we are doing,
But, true, it's d*mn convenient to say
"Just luck of the draw the blighter's ruined,
He should have made it out until payday.
He should have not been born into the slums,
He should have pulled himself up by the hair,
Taken example from our glorious sons,
And to cap it all off, life's rather unfair."
That he has to wait an age to see someone
Who'll legally diagnose him off the stream:
His parents kicked him out when too far gone,
Let dreams alone, a bed is just a dream.
While other lucky kids who made it through,
Whose parents got them to adulthood ripe,
Contend with debt and scrounging their way through
What by true Reason should be our birthright.
What crime is it, to be born silver-spoonless?
We do not ask to take the spoon from them,
But give us but a means to feed ourselves,
Give us a means, we'll polish our own gems.
Give us a means, you who hold your fist tight,
"Hiding" the fabled "dice" in golden rings,
Youth, by your fault, isn't growing up right,
And tomorrow, we're taking charge of things.
With nature, dice exist, but nurture, not,
And standing trial, we point our hand at God,
And He explains, "Have all you quite forgot,
The evil that Man does won't count as odds?"

Don't be fooled by my complacent look
I'll take every word within this book
Give it new meaning, no, it took
Me minutes, or ten hours.
Don't be fooled by my resolve to do
What's not for me, what comes from you,
My mind has still not gone all through
And found reason in these flowers.
For I know I'm of an independent mind
And I know that if the mind is not aligned
With yours, I'll steer my own track down this crooked lane
Where all howl with their might and main
On how they're sitting in the rain
Because investigation, what's that?
Curiosity may have killed the cat,
But don't take food brought just like that
Not knowing what's in the caveat
May land you in the black hat.
And when will you know if you will be pulled out?
And when will you know, if you know, what format?
But, don't be fooled, I won't be sensible,
Sweet, right or comprehensible,
A position indefensible,
Yet infinitely more fun.
Don't be fooled, my reason's lock and key,
There's stumbles still in stock for me,
And alas, many more of these,
Will be some already done.
But I know I'm of an independent mind
And I know that if the mind is not aligned...

When that I should stop looking at the couples passing,
Smile, thinking I've had my day, and retreat, musing
"Some people grow up and get married, and are happy"?
And I don't, because being yoked is what I see it to be:
There is freedom for others in love, that I in my wanderings
Have not found; I was not meant in all my constant ponderings
To be mortal; I was not meant to not question a tie to one:
I am condemned as the artist to observe, and taste, but, for one,
Never know, because I am Nature's scribe, and Chaos' vessel.
Perhaps one day I should concede, and cease to wrestle
With mortality, that there is a level-headed fellow out there
To be my foil, who I can wrestle with instead, through fair,
Unfair and to the last day of our wear down to dust,
Such a one who has my perpetual (grudging) admiration and trust.
I can see myself, crowned with fat braids, kneading bread
As he complains to me of the vicissitudes that rise from bed
At work, my writing in a tidy heap as the children, crossing swords,
Threaten to bring down our careful peace and all my words.
With doughy arms I reprimand them, and set them to the work
They yet think of as play, and sit, my arms around his neck
Whispering sweet words of comfort, wisdom, love,
And he'll look at me in turn, ready to move
Earth, sky, and stars, let alone fire his secretary...
But I, for now, only know how to write poetry.

Doubt truth to be a liar,
Doubt that there are heavens above,
Doubt in the burning power of fire,
Never doubt: I do not love.

They all ask me what I want to be after uni
It's no longer when I grow up, though how
Any can consider me so is beyond me
When I still jump onto the low fences like a cat
And traverse them in my absurd boots with barely a bow
When no one is looking, and everyone is watching, what
A fool and a spectacle I make of myself, I care little for
Until I come home, and realise I may have overplayed the clown -
But what was I made for, if not to hang upside down,
And call the world right side up that way? I implore and ignore
You, and you can heed me, or try to read me,
But you'll always need me.

And I could just send him that poem
Because I know it's up his alley
I could, but it's a love poem
And we remember well what happened last time
I sent a love poem to his alley:
I lost it, until it returned, smeared in grime,
Torn up, upon the wind that carries the tumbleweed
And all my hopeless songs that I carried at the top
Of my then hoarse voice, now silken, sleek, with the greed
Of the alley-cat who knows how to survive the outcrop
Of shallow inconveniences like love, papercuts.
And we all know papercuts only hurt kids.

That the heart is troubled by the heart that is troubled
That is not your own heart’s troubles: the ecstasy doubled
And the room beats full of hearts, overbubbled
In the heat of the moment and the drama that’s cobbled
Together by them, of real sorrows that aren’t theirs to share,
But very much theirs to tear and wear and overstare,
Because the blood cares only as much to care
For the fizz of the moment, and it isn’t your hair
That is being torn; it isn’t your paean that is being sung -
It’s you caterwhauling it, as you will, lung and lung;
And deranging the song, like ten cats being hung
And their guts played alive, violins freshly strung…
But forgive me, I tell you – this is the horror
Of those who will stake in another girl’s drama.
It’s not a piece of your pie, and it isn’t mine either;
I just know what it’s like, so spare us the fever,
And spare me the fiver, ‘cos I’ll dish you no more
Than nothing and dagger looks: The heart still beats sore.

I'm a bit over the weather, really.
And last year's me may well have been
Rather under the weather, and nearly
Submerged by the deluge when it was seen
That beyond the grey was nothing:
I did not see far enough, and if I
Have seen further, it is because I
Once stood on the shoulders of giants. Nothing
To say I can't do it again, even if the ascent
Is easier said than done. Rather than a further descent,
Rather than the blocking of my sun, a sun that I
Have a right to as much as any and all that live,
I will embrace all, and thank even the rain, for I
Am really a bit over the weather, and ready to forgive.

I deserve better than empty days
And empty nights, and the empty gaze
Of an empty screen, and my words
My words, my word, hounding me
Like they hounded you, the birds
That knew no better than to fly free
And sing a tune they thought you'd hear
And find sweet. How I tossed teaspoon
After tablespoon of honey, cinnamon, and cumin
Thinking I was a pretty picture, not the loon
I know looking back from the mirror, fuming
Unjustly at you for not seeing ever
This woman who lost herself as she'd persevere
And sever her pride. But it was I, forever,
Who blocked my ears and bound my eyes, to revere
Nothing of any reality or love, an empty chamber
In which my broken voice reverberates, a dying ember,
"Love me, J--, love me?", though my heart knows
That this was not the place to ask or look
My heart cried after I did not listen to her throes,
"This man isn't even a chapter in your book."

The gentleman is too proud, methinks
As is the lady, lazed and dazed, not, too aware
And with all her cares upon the brinks
She toys, with painted fingernails
She knows that not much of what she's doing's really fair
But is is it fair now, when it fails?

I wish I didn't think on you
I wish I didn't think on him
I wish the image of yet another
Long-gone, long-imprinted former lover
Didn't buoy and continued to swim
I wish Love was out of my view.

I wish I'd played a better hand
I wish I'd tilled the soil before
I wish the image of a past future
Didn't rip open the suture
Of my trying to forget the lore
I weaved around a much-fantasised land.

I wish I didn't wish in vain
I wish that I'd let die and live
I wish the image of Her, myself,
Didn't taunt me from my shelf
I made a dusty shrine, forgive
The trespass that I own, in pain.

I wish that I were sober, honey,
And a little drunker, for my money,
Though I invested little, and I die:
I hope I will not breath last 'til I try.

Some three-quarters of the time the mind is a-whir
With all of the poisons and burdens I bear
And, honey, if I could be sober, I would, but I try.
I deny the flesh, and I deny the liquor,
I deny the substance, and God, and I'm sicker,
And, honey, if I could be sober, I would, but I die.
The answer it lies in my opposite hands
That try all at once to conquer new lands
And write terrible poems, and bake dastardly breads,
And still all my lovers lie cold in their beds -
I satisfy no one, not even myself.
But, honey, I try and be sober,
Though maybe that's not quite the answer,
And maybe that's why
Life has left me up high
On that dusty, dusty shelf.
But, honey, I wish I were sober
'Cos maybe all this would be over
Until another voice says "You're not lost enough."
And I say, Milady, you're plainly wrong,
For the wind is my carriage, and silence, my song,
I'm a diamond that can't cut herself out of the rough.
"Lose yourself to the zest, lose yourself to the tune
Of the rhythm of life, and find you will soon
There's another disinhibition that can aid you,
Turn that thing around, that madness that previously stayed you."
I'm full of good colour, I'm full of great life,
But I'm tied by confusion, who bares a keen knife,
If I embraced my health and my joy, then perhaps I'd be sweeter,
And I do like change, but I'd love for my mind to be neater
Or at least wilder with thoughts that bare better times
I'll try catch the rhythm, and I'll follow with rhymes
I'll be drunk on Life, not forever hungover,
It's only my outlook needs be a wee bit more sober.

I will, for I can, go beyond my station now
Wherefore should I be confined? And how
You will wonder at me in the future,
Which I shall make my present, forgetting the suture
That has held my mouth - It is not a scar;
And I have a million things to say as they are,
Or as they might be - I will ape Almodóvar
And outshine Solovjov, and will I go far!
I will be She of the next generation;
But I must get beyond this station
I must move beyond the static,
From the bedroom to the attic,
And from thereon, to the world,
When my courage has unfurled;
And I will seize this with both hands
And deal you wonder, charm and reprimands:
I will paint you images, and write you songs,
Celebrate your joy, and right your wrongs,
Pick at the intricacies, and throw the obvious,
Show humankind as honest and oblivious,
And I will do this all, and watch me so -
I just need to ready, set, and go.

I can do this too, when I'm not au naturel
And trying to beat all of your @sses with how well
I make the gentleman, how excellently I am the imp,
How swell I step, dancing, aside, how terribly I simp -
Sometimes catch me getting back and giving the barman a chance -
I heeded their call; I washed off the day, and stepped into a trance
Of raspberry, rose and sandalwood; I donned my blue and pink silk,
And my black boots, tights and blazer - She's got style; And in that ilk
I also painted my face, with blues, whites, pinks, blacks, golds
And it was late when I stepped out, and in the very holds
Of the night that a lady like I should find terrifying, but I walked
The quarter of an hour to the Silk Mill; talked
For something more like four or five,
Face sharp, hair artfully mad, alive
In every sense, aided by the fine cocktails in this student setting
I could enchant all in four languages, and I did, forgetting
For a bit that another one of my faces I believe to be repugnant:
Because it begs for attention; and my current, commanded it
Because I came expecting nothing, and asking nothing,
And I quite frankly didn't give a d@mn about much of anything,
But if I wasn't very much a part of the room, and very much she
Whom every boy needed to speak to, and would ideally keep the company
Of, if that wasn't I
Then every lie's a truth, and every truth, a lie.

Oh the irony
When I called you the guy
Whose music saved me
And now some days I nearly die
And right now I curse your name
And I think, wherever you lie
I hope you lie and feel something the same
Like I, so exhausted I can't even cry
I asked for a bit of kindness, that is all.
And then I remember how messed up you are
Already, uncharitably, and charitably, I fall
Into the comforting thought that so far
And further, you're punishing yourself
And that I could have tried to help
But I'm helping better by focusing on myself
And leaving you to your own quiet yelp
Into the empty world you framed it well to be;
And I think, Stuff it, I deserve far, far better
And not even from you, just generally
And one day I won't blame you, still bitter
As you are, transcendent as I will be -
I wish I could say I felt you deserved my pity.

Half the time I forget I'm a woman
Half the time I'll act the man
There is no lad out there who will treat me
Like the lady I ought to be;
And so I'm skulking like the teenage duellist
That I wrote into my stories, cruellest
In my smile and style, harsh blacks,
Harsh silvers, stinging hylauronic gloss
The only thing that reminds you that the tax
I place upon myself is a compromise from my loss.
I will fight all those scoundrels for me
Dosed up on Panic! as only I can be
"Whoa! Mona Lisa!" Aye, but catch me bare my teeth,
Catch me look at you, eyelashes poignards, like the iris underneath
The deepest blue
To remind you
I'm not entirely the goth I paint myself to be;
And tomorrow it'll change, as the black shirt'll be *****
And thrown into the wash, and I'll still try to cut a picture
In my poet's silk blouse and blood-red lipstick; I indenture
Them into this image - I'm surviving for every next coming dawn
But, yeah, I'm doing it in a style - that of the dagger drawn.

My adoptive father
(A week younger than I)
Who once dated my adoptive mother
(4 months younger than I)
Took us out to a posh joint in New Town
Where both of us took turns in being the clown
Taking the jester's, drama queen's crown
And taking down
Our Spanish waiter
Not sure if we did cater
More to them than they to us.
The racket, the drama, the jokes, the fuss,
My Instagram, and A.'s.
I remember his attempts to chase
Us, to gain to our level, to chat me up - make me leave trails
Of mirth tears, too, not just vinaigrette. "If the lady would give me her details...
Have my heart..."
(Serving four of a chicken on my plate)
"You broke my heart."
(Agreeing to and pulling off staging a "stage kiss" with my mate)
And they both admired my guns - He knew not to cross
Us. We're a dream team, my school-dad and I, no loss
For us, though we take Ls with smiles on our faces:
We'll keep on joking, laughing, irreverently, untying your laces,
Tripping up on our own but still making the trip;
And when the bill finally came, it was more than worth it, even the tip.

How do I apologise to you, as a lady,
When I wooed you like a gentleman?
Do I bow out, and kiss your hand? Again too manly;
Do I withdraw in pique, dangerously fluttering my fan?
I said I wished you the best, no apology necessary;
Best to move on, and forget another shameful episode
Of dropping hints, and asking to hang out, totally unwary
And uncaring of the hints you dropped along the road
Too long for my own stretching it; but in dignity I knew to stop,
I knew enough was enough at that point, for my ***** to carry;
The cogs in my head were grinding to a halt and over the top.
You weren't a man to make an honest woman of me,
But I would be, and am, honest without you, and believe,
As I told you "Believe I will be fine", that I will fly
As I have been flying; When you cease looking through a sieve
Look up to the sky; and yet, perhaps once more, I'll pass you by.

I still scroll endlessly through your other pages
Back to when you weren't an enigma and loved the world
A person I barely know - I addressed you fists curled
Ready to fly, ready to appease; I addressed you through the cages
Of what I knew, and the mesh of my anxiety and preoccupation;
You told me little, and I flashed this way and that, trying to draw you
But what of these efforts? I directed them wrongly - You were in view
And I should have held you as the attraction, especially in your immolation
Your drowning, your keening, with your ocean soft voice, no one
Would really guess the storms that brew, at least not a fool like I
Constantly searching in ways to entertain, to please, to die
For you, and hoping you would not let a chance like this to have gone
Because I swear I see myself in you, and you in myself besides, besides
A mystery I wish I had asked more about, that fuels your harmonic sighs
And instead I laid out truths, jewels, as elaborate as lies
I should have merely stood before you, let the tides
Tell you who I am; the actress is merely an element
I'm not here to burn you. I'd like to know you
And how I wish I could give you only what I owe you
Be natural; hold the flowing of my river through your rocks to be self-evident.

I'm waiting on a number of things:
When will you reply, though I gave you wings
To fly away if you will, and you have the right;
I'm waiting for inspiration to strike me in the night
That I am again OK without you - I don't need to feel
My heart implode when I read my old poetry, to steel
Myself when I see apparitions of what I had desired,
To blush and reproach myself for being lost, uninspired,
And pining after you again like a whipped cur; When
You hold space for me IRL
And my messages aren't a URL
Of something that I thought would resonate with you, again
I lose myself, hoping I can gain because you gain, and then
It just feels like I'm throwing my love into a void, again.
I don't just give energy like that; I don't just give thoughts;
I was divinely inspired, and I thought your beauty grand
And lovely, and still those aren't the words, and still this Noughts
& Crosses is a stalemate; And you're cross, and I'm five grand
For nought, and flippin' babbling because I'm so, so lost
And I long for your presence and your voice for me, warm as toast,
Nourishing as honey, real like salt, alive for water, and eternal
And lavender. I can forget roses, even if you like them too; lavender, like you, is eternal.

You know, I'm not defined by this
I never was this, I never was his
I spent a little time
In a skin that wasn't mine
I played a small pantomime
Where I stumbled over every line
And you probably though this was me
But it isn't, and it's not who I want to be
The person I want to be is still banging on
The walls of my insides, still hanging on
For a day that she will come outside, even if
There is no one around to see it, maybe it's
Better that way, for the first time, I will strip off
And Remember what is wearing no glitz
That I thought was me, but my own skin -
I'm tired of the shape I see, I'm ashamed of how I appeared in
Your eyes; yet, there are people who believe still,
Who never stopped seeing the real girl.

I want you to see
You who claim to love me
You who claim to save me
From that which I can't see
Ahead, but I know in my bones
I can't let bygones be bygones
Right now - I've worked a week for two
Or three, and I'm tired, and I have had too
Four weeks locked up through no fault of my own
And I am wearing close to the bone
And I'm dying on my own
I am not-crying on my own
I can't say I'm alone
When I'm out of the zone
Where the world is a stranger
And my sun turned from me in danger
As if I would **** him with my pallor
Because I asked for his light, in squalor
Or maybe just too young
And realising how much is wrong
And how much has been wrung
And how I have a limit to being strong
And how I loved too much
That I'm now sick of the loving, friendly, familial touch -
I did not realise how much I suffered
Until today's sweet sunny plans, by me, were scuppered.

This is desire; nothing you have heard of in
Romantic poems, of red, of pink, of green,
Of gold and pearlescent white - it is a picture
Of me in my pjs, with my sexiest underwear
Beneath, for no reason at all - I have my feet
Up on the footstool of our stained sofa set
Coffee and alcohol and goodness-knows-what
From bygone beggars who lived our student lot
And it's quarter past two, and I have a well-eaten
Granny Smith core in my hand, and the day has beaten
Me. The week has beaten me, but hey!
I smiled through it all, almost all the way.
And my household (mis)adventures mean I carry a stale chipshop
And washing smell about me. And I stop
And I think, yeah, I'm only up because I'm working late -
I'm only working late because I got up late -
I only got up late because it finally hit me -
It finally hit me and I'm working on trying to get by
So I record myself on IG live reading a Victorian novel
I discovered two summers ago when another total
Fool decided it was wise to break my heart
Because I'm needing the typed-in hope, on my part,
Discovering that I'm sitting with a journey ahead
Stilled, getting over the craziness, the pain in my belly and head,
A hundred things I could do fresher and if I just lived normally
And I'm sitting, again, a picture of nonchalant insanity
Over a pair of strong tan arms, great hands, quick-fingers,
Beautiful blue eyes, a jaw, a beard, a chest, a heart that lingers
Everywhere, in every word you speak - it resounds, rather,
Root-chords and sevenths and sixths and fourths, and, bother,
I write you as a blazon when it was your whole and soul
I loved. "I loved you once". I think I love you now, the fool
I am, staring into the dark night, the flats across where they
Have potted tropical plants and a couple and a cat, and hey,
I sing whenever the window is open, hoping you will pass
And hear my clear voice lauding your songs and more, but alas
These hopes are vain, and the window was open wide tonight
And I wonder how many I entertained, not going left or right,
Dimming the lights, thinking about you, and losing my mind
As I still do? No, it's not a **** picture, but I'm inclined
To say it's real, and if that ain't ****, the ****** says,
Then I sure as heck will never settle for what is.

I've been falling
Or rather standing
Before you
And falling in your eyes
And rising in your eyes
And too due
To tell you
That it's true
I've left the plain
Secure and sane
And I endure pain
Quiet and vain
Loud and bold
The old tales told
Of lovers like I
And still I try
And all
Will fall
Or maybe it's all the other way about -
It's only that I'm flying, and you're not.

Why is my head empty?
I have a million ideas of what to write
But none of them seem right.
Perhaps just this is plenty.

Some things get you down,
And getting up again,
Just when you had regained your crown
This morning, after ages of pain,
Is difficult, especially alone.
Talking to loved ones feels only slightly better;
All methods of self-care are gone;
So I write a letter,
A short thing, saying, Guys
Life has lows and highs:
There will be vermin on this earth -
Don't let their arrogance push down your own worth.