Stretched out my
sight line
like a tripwire trying
to catch someone
off-guard
and you
wandered into it,

stumbled slightly,

yet still
I was the one
who fell.

Your hands fit
perfectly into my
skinny spaces
as if the
primary-school outline
of your palm
was drawn
just for me.

I can see myself
destroying
my own dignity,
popping it like
bubble-wrap
and watching as it
deflates
under my
forcible
fingertips.

Teach me to
swim
in the
sound-waves
of your voice.

All the lights
have gone out
in my eyes
and you've hidden
the matches.

Didn't I tell you
I was afraid of
the dark?

Light up our backs,
bonfire,
burn,
burn us down
until we float
to the ground
as ashes,
ashen dust,
till death do we
ignite
the lives of those around
us
like city lights
or stars that
don't go out.
Outline.
Framed.
Posture
picture
perfect
Hanging
in this moment,
immortalised,
ageless,
free
like the flames
which lick
the velvet skin of
night,
engulfing our
shadows
as we stand
with our backs to the
stories
they told

- children
of the fire.

We always make sure
to part on a
good note
but this time
it was slightly
off-key.

I make up
conversations
in my head
constructed from the
words you never
say.

I still can't decide
if silence
would be preferable.

It's all coming down.
That which I built up over the years,
brick by brick
with bleeding hands.

I realise now
what it all meant,
those unthought actions and
unacted thoughts.

And I see it all before me
like the sad endings of the movies
you don't want to watch.
Your face in the mirror just like
you wish it wasn't.
Secrets in a drawer and
you regret having looked.

Each story they tell you is like
another dash
- on the canvas that shouldn't be
painted.

Maybe there's a reason for it all
and one day you'll be given a diploma
you don't really need.
Because they're telling us
you'll learn.

But what do you do when you
haven't learnt yet
and the mistakes are still
being made?

And that which you are hiding from
is chasing you
like the sea at your ankles and
it's too cold
so you're running
and you're scared
because this wave is bigger
than the one before.

Suddenly you're drowning
down and down
until you feel your palms press
flat
against the bricks from all that time
before.

You open your eyes for just the
slightest second
to see them stained red
and you know where that's from.

But they're in your way,
why won't they budge?
And you feel yourself
slipping away from under
whatever it was you used
to shield yourself.

It's all fading
and the bricks are
rebuilding themselves
but only in your mind because
that is what happens at
the end.

And you're wishing you had smiled
at the boy on the swing who
didn't yet know the world
and the girl running out of the
school gates on her last day
and the old couple who
kept on bickering.

You wish you had smiled
before it was too late.

I wonder if you
ever wore your
heart on the
sleeve
of the shirt
I stole.

Regardless,
I'm sure
that there's space
for mine.

Bathe me as you did
in your forgiveness
but do not
for it is not what I need.

I cannot say
Hold me like before,
before was never.

I cannot crave the past
because it was never the present -
it was, but not with you.

Digging up the doubts I buried,
always there and waiting
for open air to uncover dishonesties.

Turning my head the other way
- out the window -
locked in by ignorance.

Pretty skies and sparkling waters,
goosebumps on my arms,
pretending your reflection was pure.

Back turned on reality,
choosing to see graceful things,
picking false ideals.

You.
My ideal.
My imperfection.
Fatal flaw, Achilles heel.

They say ignorance is bliss and
I understand,
for bliss it was with you in your
unlabelled silence.
But who knew silence could make
such noise in my head?

Maybe the echo of some
humble truth.

I am always
perched
on the edge of the
seat
because you
take up too much
space
- yet it's
somehow
still better
than
standing.

All I ever got
out of loving you
was a snog and a
fuckload
of poetry.

Pointy shoulder blade
- yours - digging into my cheek
Comfortable pain.

Now you hold my hand
Fingers threaded between mine
Hold it forever.

Interlocking limbs
You draw me in closer still:
Don't ever let go.

Fingertips tracing
(Please excuse my sweaty back)
Painting words on skin.

Your lips against mine
Tongues searching for an answer
How it came to this.

Though we won't complain
Laugh it off in the morning -
Just please don't forget.

Poetry
stops
the brain
and starts
the heart.

I watch the world
and it watches me.
All these
limitations,
rules,
wonders
and I just
skip them by like they're
crazy
crazy
crazy.
I'm crazy too and
it makes me
aware,
like I'm
equal to your
beauty
and your pain.
And sometimes
I wish I was
beautiful
and you would read
this back and
pause
and consider all the
newly
opened
doors.
Can I maybe
be different
unborn?
Are all the possibilities
newly born?
Can we
breathe
under these limitations
of reality?
The air we breathe
is the same air
that never breathes,
never changes.
Let us transform.
Let us embrace
the opportunities
they presented to us.
Let us be real.
Let us be free.
Let us live.

Tangled up
in broken lines of
communication,
seeking out a
melody
that was never there.

Discordant sounds,
blocking them out like a
dam of
sticks and stones.

But your words, your
honest
unchosen
words
will never
break my bones.

For they are frail,
crumbling away when I
catch them in my
fingers
if even there at all.

Hanging for a moment
in the flushing heat
between us
before
dropping
like orbs of clouded glass
and shattering at my
feet.

Worthless now.
Fragments.

All the cuts on my
fingers
from trying to
pick up the pieces,
put them together,
nurse them
tenderly.
Seeking some meaning
hidden in
fractured light.

But you didn't
think of that:
do not realise
what I am
looking for.

But I am here.
I am here and I am
listening -
listening to endless
nothing.

For you make
pitiful words
priceless

because they are
yours.

You fix
the broken edges
of my
fractured
dreams.

If I were ever
to damage
myself
it would only be
so that I
could bleed
poetry.

What did I tell you about
breaking the rules?
Breaking rules is
breaking walls
- leave them there and
all they do is
stop you.

I like to think
I'm too big
to be broken,
I'm so high
above
all of that
- but you're the one
who brings me
back to Earth
and says
that I'm only
five foot
tall.

I never said goodbye.
Instead I let you fall,
further and further
until you left the hope
that was my
peripheral vision.

I could not have you.
I could not keep you.
I could not keep the
simple pleasures
that are met alongside the
empty-handed.
I was forced to leave without
a whisper in your ear
to say that
you are beautiful.

And if I had said it
what would we be?
What would you have done
had you known?

But I cannot wonder
on answers I lack.
Questions that will remain
static
but only in my past.

Do not forget me.
Do not forget the things
I never said.
The reason for the
smiles
I didn't show.

We are the past:
The distant memories,
hazy slur of another time.
Soon your face will
lose its features
somewhere in my mind,
the sound of your voice
will be
silenced.

But remember my name.
Hold on,
keep it in a drawer
by your bed,
check to see if it is still there
every night before the
sleep of dreams
void of my face and the way
we danced.

Pray,
do not forget.

You're a
tacky,
imported
kind of
pretentious.
You found
your perfection
on the bottom shelf
and bought it
at a discounted
price,
hoping it would
make do
and ripping off
the price tag.

Feed me the world on
the end of your spoon:
I won't ask any questions
and maybe this hunger will
stop.

There are some things
I don't think I'll
ever tell you:
like how I
shook
on the bus ride here
and planned my outfit
five days in
advance.
I won't ever
tell you because
you won't ever
need to know.
You see,
once we were actually
face to face
everything just
clicked
for the first time in
far too long.

I didn't get an
opportunity
to consider falling
for you,
it just happened
like missing
a step in the dark.
And I didn't get a
say
in the matter
but if I had I
don't think I'd have
fallen
any less hard.

I've never believed
in forevers
but I'm ok
with the possibility:
I'm ok with
just this one sunset
out of all the
millions
gone and
yet to come,
just this one sunset
with you
next to me
singing out of tune and
everything
surrounded by
water.

Get lost with me.
Let's forget about
time,
I like it best when
none of that matters.
You say we've got
all these hours
to **** but
let's not waste them
because it's
one more hour
with you
and I don't know when
I'll get another.

I am hanging on the
ends of the words
you don't speak,
searching for something
in our eye contact that
may or may not
be there.
Because
like I said
I don't believe in
forevers
but I sure as hell
believe
in the chance.

Catch me if you can:
falling souls
and falling hearts.

But yours slips through
my fingers
yet again.

Maybe it was too small and
fell through the gaps.
Maybe it was too big and
I couldn't keep it up.

Or maybe I was
just too scared to
break it.

We are the
inextinguishable souls.
Our hearts
beat
regardless.
We fight in
a referee's world
- maybe that's why we haven't
yet won
or given up
or something.
Maybe
life is a war
not meant for
victory.

You've ripped
me off my
hinges:
Please
build me
a new frame and
paint it
pretty colours
or I'll have no
doors left to
open

My mind is
restless
at some number of minutes
past midnight and
I am high
on poetry:
an unnamed
addiction
- drugs -
I wish I had
some of those right now
(not that I'd
know what to do
with them).
I want to be
where the wind speaks
and everything
is directed
at the
moon.
I am an
animal
and I crave
wild nights and
the thrill
of desire
or I will have no choice
but to

howl.

You rip me apart
like the ladders in my
stockings
which I try to climb but
never take me
anywhere
other than closer to
you

I fell in love
with the back of you.
That's because
I wasn't special enough
to be facing:
Your eyes
were never on me
to begin with.

But once they were
I fell in love with those
too.
I fell in love
with your
everything.

Problem is,
now I'm falling
out of love
with the back of you.

Because you are
always
walking away.

You are always walking away
because you're
too scared
to be loved by me
and you're too scared
to break my heart
to my face.

Just know this.
I am here and
I am looking at you,
whether it's
your front
or your back
it doesn't matter.

Because I know
your back
like other people know
the palm of
their own hand.

Every indentation,
every flaw,
you tell me you have
bacne
but I don't care:
It makes me love you
all the more.

You are
always
walking
away.

Just let me know
if we'll ever be facing
again.

Teardrops dripping off
my tongue
- catch them if you can -
let them
freeze
between your
meticulous and
calculating
fingertips

Moonwalking on a
tightrope
Let the fire
burn
our safety net
If we fall the
ashes
shall catch us

We were floating like
dirigibles
But now we're *******
miserable
Thought we were happy
Pretentious and sappy
Wanting to be seven months
older than we were.
Trying not to *****
like trying to stay inside
our own minds when they
told us not to judge
- not to ***** -
That's what you're doing
now.
You want to fly but
sickness brings you down
like the memories
they gave you
that you didn't want.

But apparently
you're just
taking a ****.