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.

There is a story that I'm told:
When I was only six years old,
A playmate I met in Uni parks;
When her mother found out that I
Lived just past the marsh,
I was declared bad company.
To which I did reply:
"When I am rich and famous,
I won't treat you as you have treated me."
Since then, I have met many an ignoramus
But never 'til this evening, did I recall the reply,
Of a hurt, stung, but sage and sweet child: The six year old I.

I still look at Oxbridgers with envy;
I still look at high-school kids bleary-eyed;
I think, I'll leave home and go crazy;
Looking back on old love, I'm cold inside.
My being's regret: I know full well why
It's all past my ears - there once was a time
When gratitude meant something; And, young, I
Was humble. I rose, and I fell, to climb
Yet again, dusty-handed, dishevelled,
And bitter. Do I not shine anymore,
You stars? I can't ask why I am so levelled
Because I know. I can't wail any more
Because I would waste more hours I don't have.
My speech is of a man half in the grave -
I'm only half out of my parents' house;
Wailing would be an insult to my nous.

What flawed design is this? Framed by greed, eyed by chance,
Do you think so easily you can entrap me in this dance?
It is a marriage contract in which I have no choice -
I have no ground, no sound, no voice...
I cannot. What? Either it is my future or my siblings' in jeopardy.
I exaggerate - We can afford this, but barely.
Minimum student loan: The bane of many, the burden of many
Burden of unrealistic measures. You ask me to live off borrowed money
On borrowed time? You ask me to learn as others did off reflections from the past,
When time has moved on, and moved on fast?
When the world is barking at these measures, and still it continues,
And I, at risk of being denied an education, cannot refuse
To do things, not just by halves, but by even by eighths.
And would I, I would refuse another year, and hope the Fates
Prove kind. Do they prove kind to those who complain?
Who ever loved a rebel, when the rebel was alone?

I was looking at shoes, as I was two and a half years ago
Off to mark a milestone, as I am now,
And somehow, as before, the shop owner becomes my advisor,
Sagely dispenses wisdom, asks sage questions, a sagesse that I
Do not know, though I feel older than the hills - the lies for
A true veteran to realise, though I will never be older, we can't deny
Than I am now, yet also never younger, in this moment.
It is easy for one that has seen many to guess the torment
Of a young soul - My life is decided in my teens, and I stick with it -
Or not, as they keep telling me - the door isn't closed - I am young;
It doesn't feel that way - it isn't long I was a babe, it isn't long
I have to live, I lie to myself, savouring little and nothing
Except the wine that dulls me further; It doesn't fit;
Nothing fits, into the time-frame I have constructed from something,
A rate, that isn't constant - the change in the perception of time:
There was a time that hours were days, and now days are hours;
And one day, they will be seconds, and soon will years.
It's all too fast, even when I complain it is too slow; where's the rhyme
And reason and rhythm to all of this? I was conceived; the die was cast;
I'm not going somewhere slowly: I'm going nowhere, fast.

There are still clothes I cannot bring myself to sort,
Still papers lying, crumbling, crumpling their worth -
My life is a mess since you hit me out of kilter
And I can't pick myself up, let alone my belongings;
I can't pick up, get up, grow up, let alone filter
What I need and what I don't, as in my longings
I asked for you - I should have asked to long for breath;
Perhaps I'm just enduring cramp now, in this little death
Of mine - Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow with a fresh head,
Maybe I'll remember my worth, and not with dread
That I am worth so little to you
Who was just one of a few
One of a few you passed by and left a wake,
Awake. How could you know, sweet rake?
How could I know? Disease can often touch us longer
Than we think; its hold, though weakened, is still stronger.

I walked through life with a rude and fresh arrogance:
I was taught it when I was still a big fish in a small pond,
When I still had a can-do-it-all attitude, when the dance
Was life, and the tune was want, and the performer, fond,
Moved like anything. Anyone. Save Lethe, who dulled me,
Who pulled me under waves when I cursed the sea,
When I thought, to time immemorial, I had the energy
To do anything, go anywhere, be anything I wanted to be -
I lived off borrowed time, and borrowed fire,
And borrowed, all of my once blazing desire
Fed no one, but lost dreams - I reap the harvest now:
I should have been a doctor, and I plough
My lack of care and decision, my blind turning, and the resulting salt,
I trudge through the compost of other unfinished deeds, never to halt -
I never knew the meaning of a battery, even when it ran down;
My phone recharges at night, and I simply squint and frown,
Trying to make sense of a world sensible to girl who used to dream;
Sleeping through waking, as though nothing would be as it would seem.

Darkness fell like my love's feet
Softly o'er the fields of wheat,
O'er the valley, o'er the bridge,
O'er the mountain, o'er the ridge.

And sitting still o'er a blazing fire,
And my heart blazing with desire,
Dark is the fire, I still confide,
Compared to the eyes of my would-be bride

And blazing like my heart, my mind,
For that your kindred could not find
That I had will where had not kind,
So to our love were deaf and blind.

And rove I will to seek my worth
And rove I'll o'er this whole earth
And though beside you I mayn't lie
We'll share an earth and share a sky.

Perhaps, one day, Fate will prove fair
And let me pledge to you my care.
For now, our love benighted be -
Hope, soon, we shall a sunrise see.

That which feeds, it also starves
By its memory. Life doesn’t do halves.
And life does halves, but people never do.
Tell me it’s false, or tell me it’s true,
I’ll believe both, but nothing in between
One would **** her too, they who say they love the queen
Just so, my love, you are both my hatred and my dearest
But passion – it picks the nearest
Extreme, extreme to the point of screaming
Dissembling, duplicitous, and seeming
But I will call it one or the other
God or vermin, foe or brother
You are all one and the same
And there is no distinction and no shame
From swinging – flame
The flame is the same
Always, we hate and love with one
We fixate on one
And fixation is both
Care and wrath
Emptiness consumes
And so assumes
Plenty, and excess is a vacuum
And I may surfeit of nothing and everything
No, I do not presume
I KNOW (nothing) and can(not) describe everything
So dear, when you call me “pain” and answer me not
I shall not assume I am forgot
Because in the very act of trying, or doing
Away with the memory of me, my memory still persists
And my absence insists
On my presence, and I am still your making, and undoing.

Dully, the dewy eyes make their way towards a bed
And not, before something should be said:
The cure seems to be tomorrow.
The panacea for all death, lethargy and sorrow
Is tomorrow, which washes over us
A wave, the new day, fresh salt and water
And anything sad and onerous
Goes away, or at least can be approached by the daughter
Of today’s dying mother cell, and all hope lies
In the next day, because if not now, then mañana, demain, zavtra
Therein lies the happy ever after, after
After today, as the loom of life keeps on weaving
And the thread of life keeps on beading
And the sighs of life keep on leaving
And the tides of life keep on receding
And washing in again upon the shore
Washing my beached body evermore
Until I choose to stand up as I may
Stand, rise, up and seize the day –

By Jove, how am I so bare, so salted, so lost?
“Day one, or one day, you decide”
Oh prefect of 2017, where am I to hide
From your words? Where am I to hide from a host
Of other words, phrases, calling me out on “laissez-faire”?
The tide will wash over and over
The tide will erode the cliffs of Dover
The tide will erode me with time and lack of care
Because the rhythm cares not,
Though it bares us on
The music won’t stop,
As we dance as one
The machine keeps grinding
The barons keep minding
The hurdy-gurdy keeps winding
And Time keeps binding
And the poet keeps writing
And keeps writing, and biting
Her nib
And her lip
And thinking this sounded better in my mind
Than put down to pages unlined, undefined
Nothing can be defined, only compared
There is no pen that can know,
No knowledge that may be shared
Only pondering
Wondering
Musing, when the muse gives
When one feels one lives
When one feels, one lives
When one reels, one gives
When the world keeps reeling
And I keep feeling
And this page is keeling
And your eyes are peeling
But I did not come to write horror –
I wanted to give hope for tomorrow,
Which will surely come, but, audi vocem meam
Te imploro: *** venit, carpe diem.

Cast me gently, let me sink.
Put me into the person of a smooth grey pebble
Carry me to the shallows, and gently drop me in
That I may fall, disappear, and forget for a bit, the whining treble,
The troubling bass, the choir of cacophonies, a migraine
Appearing around my temples and at my back;
That I may forget, I lack, I lack, I lack, alack.
May the waters churn and lap upon the surface,
I lie, I curl, I sleep, I exist, quiet, in topaz;
My simplicity is a privilege: I don’t need to imagine I’m a gem,
Even if I am. Water covers me, and you aren’t to call them,
Pick me up and dry me until the sea turns garnet the second time.
Let me drown in peace, out trouble; let me remember I’m
Better than waves of doubt would have me think.

My soul was steeped in guilt
Ink was over my conscience, spilt
Obscured, I felt my way through life
Treading carefully on the knife
Edge I used sometimes to cut my dignity
In pain and shame and in indignity
I’d become addicted to more pain
When life dealt it to me again
When I dealt it to me again
I became blind, I saw no gain
I wished for death, I wished for light
I wished that walking through the night
I might be swallowed into the ghost realm
Where once I stood with my pen at the helm
Rewriting, writing, making history
I still think it is a mystery
In some senses, that I pulled through and made it out alive
Only to survive
With guilt, and my parents now holding me
From falling deeper into the emotional self-harming sea.

One life, darling, in this form, at least
One day the sun won’t rise any more in the east
For you, at any rate. Will you be able to say
On that final day, when Fate takes your breath away
You lived it to the fullest?
Made it beautiful even in the second that seemed the dullest?
Here is my advice – do something mad once in a while,
Something that the thought of makes you smile
Not just with delight, but with amusement, too
At its absurdity in it being something you wouldn’t ordinarily do
Take a chance – Take a run, make a dance,
Don’t be shy, and write to that acquaintance,
Compliment a stranger, take photos of ducks,
Order the wackiest ice cream, smile on those times when you’re down on your luck
Because you were brave, and because you dared
To live your life in the truest way that you cared.

Fire and brimstone in a head
That rests upon my hands,
On my soft pillow on my bed,
Upon my shoulders, even in foreign lands.
A shell just slightly thicker than an egg’s,
But there is no yolk, only firecrackers
That my heart implores, charges, begs
To stop, before the shell truly shatters
Spitting out the grey matter to populate the skies
With nebulae, since I neglected to be wise.

I learnt to start justifying my actions
After years of crying sin
On everything I did and said
And only now the thought pervades my head
Now that I can breath, and I have no one to wrong
Just how wrong I was for the long
Of these two years.
Amongst my fears
I count – Will I ever be as brave, as honest, as forgiving, as principled
As before the time the reality of Life hit me, violent, raw, carried me on its current, limp, unbridled?
Will I find Truth again
Not calling it vain
To struggle and fight
For what is right?
Will I learn to forgive myself, not because ‘it was a hard time, too hard for me to take’,
But come out of the shame I have descended into, and give forgiveness for its own sake?

I forgive easily, give second chances easily, give easily
I give up more than I can, feasibly,
Until I realise, the stone idol, earthquake crumbling, does nothing but rain stones on me
And I am already so deeply entrenched,
That I forget how to seek strength,
From a God that hasn’t forsaken me.

Do you wake up only even now?
She tugged on your toe, sleeping giant, for long
She did not speak in me, but spoke to me
Only now, you get up, and you bow
I grew up silent, my parents saying that shouting is wrong
Perhaps it is, but speaking firmly and clearly
Is the opposite – It demonstrates control and frustrates the enemy
Let measure be your ally, sleeping giant, as you unfurl like an anemone
Though you slept through her trying
Through her crying,
You heard little. True, you woke up sometimes,
And moved mountains, but the times
Are still cruel to her, and you, as the big man, must protect
Those who are oppressed, else your size is your greatest defect -
They are not lords that forget their strength, and so, their duty
To aid those who are in difficulty.

This minute gives me no strong feelings - “...Going no where...”,
Stornoway, you had it there
Yet we are, just slowly, as slowly as Boats and Trains
And I fear unrequited love too, and I fear the rains
That bless tomorrow, and I fear Dad’s bottle of wine
Will never see the day when the light will shine
Through glasses it’s poured into, and our eyes, and our hearts
I don’t think anyone has even thought about rehearsing their parts
‘Cos it’s a very, very, very long way a way
Too too long way away, freedom to love, to smile, to breath, day.

Gliding on the Isis, Dad at the castle
Not hindered by the usual watern bustle
Summer is come, my sister’s a flower
Unfurling to sweet sixteen’s tune in this hour
Dog roses and nettles, poplar and willow
Leaning over the bow’s bitter pillow
The world’s upside down – Didn’t need the self-posed illusion
To prove it. Elderflower, wine, and face masks are an odd infusion
But I lie, steampunk Docs in first position, stilled in time
Immortalising it in few photos and poor rhyme
Poor as my experiences are rich, but capturing to perfection
The aimlessness of mine, of our, wonderings’, wanderings’, their recollection.

Pray, seek not glory for thyself for love.
Learn from the master: ‘Tis a waste in shame
To think the earth and sky and wills to move,
To think to make Heaven thunder thy name,
To think that falling stars are thine to keep,
To think that one converse with merfolk can,
To think thou know’st the place where fairies sleep,
Believe thou canst turn stone into a man.
If such, thy sweetest idol, asks for blood,
Wouldst thou grant it him, to appease his wrath?
And even if he asked thee to do good,
Look to his brow, if he a conscience hath;
If such are the demands that thou hast done,
Believe, he is no better than a stone.

When this is all over,
Assuming it’s nice weather,
Let’s take punt of some description and conquer the Thames.
When this is all over,
When we can meet together,
Let’s make all Oxford sick of our songs and games.
The air cries for youthful fun and folly,
The butterflies, birds and brooks are jolly,
I look on and I smile, but inside I’m glum;
Since this promising May
Makes no promise today
The date on which the end of this prison shall finally come.

When this is all over,
Let’s take to fields of clover,
Let’s tear down through New College Lane
Crying for the love of life though you’d think we’re insane
I’m tired of walking and having to feign
Being happy, when the secret to happiness shall always remain:

“Por sentir la gioia,
devi condividerla” - Mark Twain

Messy ink, ragged paper, dust
I laid them down to gather dust
And came back to them only now
Sorting, sitting, wondering how
A few weeks ago these worksheets
Were my world, these were feats
Of daily effort to a common goal
Now, never to be touched by all of us at all.
And saying “To think...” to my sister, who didn’t hear,
And likely never will, I all but let go of a single tear.

Though I may be laughed at for my simplicity
I’d like to assure, I still have the capacity
To learn
To earn,
If they have listened properly to my life and all its cadences,
Each of my doubters’ respects and silences.

I am a girl, since in my soul I know no better, of curious notions:
I take storms in teacups
I collect them, and channel them into whirlpools
When my soul can no longer take the ups
And downs, when I no longer possess the tools
To build a façade, or can no longer hold them
I accumulate the dust from molehills
And make them into volcanoes, from which stem
And flow the plumes of fumes and spills
Of my lava anger.
And if my spirit intellect were stronger,
I would not bottle my emotions.

Why do I feel like I’m falling?
It isn’t me, it’s lost time falling
Away from my feet.

But why should time be lost,
When it is I that am lost,
I acknowledge my defeat

In the face of my own blind pride
And beg that you might spend another second beside
One who deserves to fall from grace,
But in its place
Is flying, soaring, hurtling,
At a rate so star-rate startling
I had to still my coursing thoughts to realise
All of this beauty is passing before my eyes
Passing in my life, and I saw none of it.
I accepted, lived in, used, but saw none of it.
Therefore it isn’t time that should be lost,
When I failed to make the most
Of it, when it’s my value that’s falling
And its is rising, and I’m failing
To match it, in its falling, and its rising,
And realising
Far too late, the worth
Of stopping, admiring, planting ones feet into the earth
For just a minute.
Living in the minute since I am, you are, we are, in it.

Ravished by lethargy, I sat outside, and gazed at the ground,
Then, thinking, how all the ants and flies went about so sound
About their business, I posed a question in my mind:
Are they aware of our misfortune, or are they blind
And thus continuing untroubled, and so unhindered,
And so thriving...? As we just sit, bewildered,
Inindustrious, confined as mentally
Just as we are physically...
And if we go, dozy giants that we are,
Neglecting of the fact, will it truly matter?

Once more, through town upon my bike, I flew
On Marston Rd, to think, that once, I knew
This road was as the daily one to school.
Then up through Cowley, thinking myself a fool
That hot summer’s day
To make the same way
Down Magdalen St so late, so mad,
Thinking of the fun I had…
Then down past school, the roundabout
Where I’d do a quarter turn about
Each and every day a month ago.
Even past the fields, father would not let the river slow,
The river of my memories, as he asked were these familiar to me
Too? And so they were; Rounders, tennis, punting days’ insanity
Have not escaped my mind just yet.
Up High St, past the colleges, I could not bet
For thoughts to be abated. My sweet town
Bereft of all but my memories strewn down
As I still rode on, and down Queen’s Lane now
Where many a happy lonely moment was spent, thinking how
I rushed down there with shopping early before Christmas…
Taking the corner, admiring the blooms, and fast
The next one, and my chest is filled with a twinge
As I remember a rainy night beneath New College Bridge…
Then St Helen’s Passage, the Bridge of Sighs, the Sheldonian!
My sweetest, proudest moments as an Oxonian…
Broad St, broad and small from lack of crowds
Still my head is in the clouds -
And St Mary Magdalen, the concert with my brother in winter,
The Ashmolean standing tall within the hinter,
And up St Giles, and down the Lamb and Flag,
Thinking of the afternoons I’d sometimes drag
Walking there, various aims or none in mind,
Now leaving the Natural History Museum behind,
And Dad reminds me of the trees that used used to fruit
Along Park Rd where now there are none… So, en route.

Childhood lessons are revisited
But through the eyes of one much younger than myself
Old films, old books, old pictures, taken off the shelf
Are brought back to the eyes of one visited
By all that once I was told worthless;
I realise now it they aren't children that are earthless
They are us. What is it, that they teach us now?
How to compete, ******* others, ourselves, how
To deny life of its substance, and to be hypocrites to those we love
They give us empty quotes, say that we can prove
More just by thinking, and what of feeling?
What of looking, what of loving, what of kneeling
To thank the Earth for that which we have,
And that which we yet may give?
Rather than thinking solely of ourselves, let's do
That which our parents taught their children to be true.

I am the bride of God but in this play;
Some 6 months standing from today
My boyfriend will be standing yet again
Administering soft words to the pain
Abounding through my mind, and in my hands,
Attempting to convey the mastery of foreign lands
And foreign times to a class of disenchanted youths,
Imagining a number of nightmarish truths
That may destroy my fantasy of July
And prove to my peers for once and for all that I
Am a failure... Hein? Non non. My Fall’s bruise
Is still felt, and Guilt, uneasy, guards my Muse
Yet I am Isabel, I am yet Rosine
And wonders are still yet to be felt and seen
Yes I will prove I can yet master quite the scene
And fantasise le meilleur Barbier that’s ever been…
And in the meantime, enjoy Thursday at the hour of one
Pronouncing French words that we’ve never done
Throw my darling down upon the floor,
Cry out on love though my throat is sore,
Stand the exam officer’s son upon a classroom chair,
Jerusalem’s tune rings loud within the air
When the main man fit it to Beaumarchais,
And my heart still rests with His tender couplet…
He only wagered all on my appearance from my jalousie
And I delivered, so let’s wait and see.

100 metres to the end,
The finish line’s in sight
You’re laughing,’cos you can’t defend
Your feelings from last night
‘Cos it was all fine, not to worry
Your legs were there to carry you
“It is all mine”, so slightly sorry
Your lack of practice tarried you
But in the end, it is all blind
You can only wait and hope
You’ve left the others far behind
And tripping in the scope
Pete Hall may have a named place
And your name draws from the hat
And then the name’s stuck to the face
Before you know, that’s that
And if it ain’t, well then it ain’t
No use crying over lord’s own spilled paint
In the back of your mind, there’s still a force
Adding “St Andrews had a very nice course.”

Doing one’s best is a chore.
Can I not do it? No more.
I have offered you all
But you just let it fall
In one **** messed up heap on the floor.

They all spoke of love, and I knew nothing of it
They spoke of songs, of kisses, of joy
And I longed to know something of it
And I tried, tried, and tried again to find the “right boy”

Then love found me, and I thought I was happy
Or that I would be now, now that I had someone to hold
Too late I realised the sickly sweetness, relationships too sappy
To my taste, though each time I tried something more bold
Thinking, can we both, can I, come closer to the foretold bliss?
Surely there is something more to this than this?

I went in with a picture of knights and damsels
Of long sigh-full poetry into blackest night
Each second lit by single candles
Their image always in my sight

I went in thinking I’d move earth and sky
I thought the strength of love would make us great
And only now begin to wonder why
I thought this was the one and only fate

They all speak of love, and I know nothing of it
Nothing of what they speak, at any rate
Somehow I doubt that I’ll know any of it
Though I am surrounded, so lonely is my state.