A cricket's call
a hooting owl
and the moon it shines
like a lantern overhead

but as you sleep
I lay awake
       wondering,

in who's arms
you're in tonight.

Your smile is electric
setting off
lightning strikes

inside my heart
shattering my beliefs
shaking my walls

breaking my resolve
bringing this human
to her knees.

And to me
you will remain
forever a secret
as I am afraid
to speak of you
in case the words fail me,
turning the sacred
into the profane.

Lay me to rest in your poisoned *****
behind a silver cage
I surrender to you a heart in chains
and when you kiss me
strange wanton delights grow
I am frightened and I'm trembling
but your seduction is slow
as it spreads
a vine of warmth through me
you leave me intoxicated
drunk within a dream.

I took a walk with you
to escape my mind
your smile was so sincere

In the cool night air you held me tight
but I tripped on a sigh
and exploded like a star
scorching the sky
lighting the dark

And now I exist in the space behind your ribs
and as your chest rises and falls
I'll remain like your last pocket of breath.

The ceiling fan
stirs up the night
twirling shadows in the dark
I close my eyes
and feel your heartbeat
knowing for sure
you're out there somewhere
falling asleep
listening to mine.

I smolder
as you edge closer
and as the smoke rises
you take my hand
      and lead me into desire
as the flames lick and engulf us
our paper hearts are set on fire.

Did you know
that when I think of you
I'm bathed in shades of blue,
and I often wonder
if you ever think of me
what color would I seem to you?

Sitting on this window's ledge
I pour myself a cup of rage
and ready with a pen and paper
I'll wait for the unheard melodies
that filter through the silent night
rain down on me and wash me clean.

I followed your eyes
and they have led me astray
help me I'm free falling
like confetti from your lips
won't you catch me
or the winds will carry me away.

Saw you today
you haven't changed a bit
except your hair's a little shorter
but that old jacket still fits just fine
"can I buy you a coffee,
for old times sake,"
it's nothing but some harmless fun
if you've got nowhere else to be

we'll laugh about back then
and how it all turned out
and you can lightly brush my hand
with a smile from behind your cup
for now let's pretend like we always did
hiding from yesterday
lost in the here and now.

In the dark places
haunted memories
of you and me
linger,
as I slip into a deep reverie
that although you're gone
and I'm here all alone
I can never be
truly free.

Frisson;
A disproportionate use of allure
you smile and I shiver with thrill
a kiss like a gun
baby you've got a license to ****.

On the precipice of broken dreams
we stare down a canyon of hitched breaths and stolen moments
on a December evening I remember you said,
"it makes me ache
how I could never love you
the way you want".

Young lovers stand in my shadow
I watch them from a shattered tenement window
with glowing eyes they reminisce the places we visited
with you as tour guide sharing the vows and kisses we once kept

as I wander alone down old memory lane
I'm walking past that house we built
where some things are hard to remember
and some things,
                            *I'll never forget.

Morning sits close on the horizon
and as dew starts to frost
a lovers kiss is cleansed from my lips
as memories once so vivid
begin to be forgot,

another night is wasted
as streaks of rouge paint the skies
I'll bid you farewell once again
and wait for darkness to return,

for in the night I am the rain
bleeding tainted words and spilt ink onto ****** sheets.

There is a summer breeze
tangled in your hair
and it feels like a California sunshine
flowing through my fingers,
won't you take me with you
so that when the winters descend
I'm not left with just an illusion of you.

Every night
it is so silent where I lay
that I can hear my heartbeat thump thump thump
in my head
outside a night jar coos
and in the distance I hear an owl call to someone unknown

Every night
my brothers and sisters cower in fear
the only lullaby are the sounds of the bombs that whistle overhead
I can hear their heartbeats thump thump thump
never knowing when one will fall on their heads.

Every night
I visit those old memories
where you haunt the corridors like a ghost in the night
and I drink you in until I'm drunk on us
and for a while at least,
I am lost
dancing with the illusion of you.

When you looked at me
all you saw were my blurred edges
there were no distinct boundaries
no real rights, no real wrongs

and I thought that was a compliment
I thought I finally found someone
who saw me for me
not for the walls that I had put up

I beamed that I was your setting sun
that no matter how bad it got
at the end of your rough day
you'd always came home
to me.

now I realise
how thick was the wool you had placed on my eyes
I was just an excuse
an excuse to use and abuse

you take more than I offered
while promising more than you were prepared to sacrifice
this was your wager of sin
and I was the pathetic gambler too stupid to say enough is enough

well this gambler has folded her cards
I walk away with nothing but the clothes on my back
take your winnings because finally

enough is enough.

Diamonds that dangle
from the heavens above,
crystals from Gods chandelier
illuminating the path
for restless souls
who toss and turn
and whose passion burns
too hot to be quelled.

You're looking for salvation
in a smile that could light your darkest nights

a spirit so much like your own
to illuminate the deepest reaches of your heart

someone for whom
you never wish to part

so you kiss different mouths
searching for that perfect taste

the combination tongue
with enough sweet to match your sour

but with every sample
every embrace,

every smile
and every taste,

with the seasons that pass from day to day
it only stings worse

because it just reminds you
of the one that got away.

By only moon light
I want you to read me like a book
trace your fingers along my spine

and discover the passages
written just for you
breathe in the scent of secrets

hidden between the sheets
as you count the freckles on my skin
a constellation leading me home to you.

The night she spills her sweet secrets
like dripping nectar
which collect like starlight in your hair,
as you sit and watch
wide eyed and amazed
at the wonders of the heavens above
they sparkle for you,
a spectacle
the magik of the cosmos
unfurling like the wings of an angel.

I've grown far too old for this body
and dragging these bones feels like a constant battle

I tire of the Venice Beach lifestyle
all the ******* romances,
those hot sandy beaches
and one night stands,
strange sunburnt embraces
and sideways glances,

won't you take me to Paris?
where the skies bleed in colours
with its cobbled streets,
cafés and nicotine tainted prophets
where the dreamers dream deeper
and the kisses are sweeter.

She's magik
and I am spellbound
caught in a web
spun of her beauty in madness,
and if she would believe me
I would tell her that her eyes shine
brighter than the wheat fields
that glisten in the midday sun.

My thoughts tread barefoot
across the terrain of words
that spill nonchalant from your lips.

So am I wrong to believe
that in between each breath you take
is a heaven made just for me?

So you've decided to cut your losses
leave here before it gets any more complicated
and you know I won't stand in your way
love should be voluntary
not a war,
not something I should have to earn
not something I should have to win.

So before you leave,
before you stumble out that door
won't you say something hurtful
make it sting to the core
say something that will singe
and leave a mark on my heart.

Because one day
should melancholy
unexpectedly
breathe life to your memory
I don't want to regret
the ghost of someone
who was gone too soon
like breath
lost on the windowpane of my soul.

Once again, after the rampage is through
you ask me to stay
in the chaos of regret that ensues
you swear that you'll change,
and this willing fool readily falls to pieces
all my defenses crumble and collect at your feet
as I lose sight of the things that i want
to the blinding need
and guilty desires
laid bare in your eyes.

There is a place
before the dawn
where I await you
longing, under grey skies
where pregnant clouds watch over me
under the shelter
of a row of pines
on hills of amber
this is our place of love,
lost but not forgot.

If you would be my own
I would be your escape
and if you should ever need me,
you'll find me in the space
between your shoulder blades
your wings
at your command, waiting for unfurl.

Sometimes I hear its rumble
like a call from distant clouds
pregnant with tears
or a whisper carried on the wind
like the mournful call of a wandering soul
I stand exposed and alone
waiting to be kissed
a cleansing rain from the heavens above
soaking me, renewing me
her rough hands caress me and enfold me
my soaked hair whipped across my face
I will stretch out my arms
lean into the madness
give myself into
the only thing I know
that won't take me away.

Sometimes I wait
for daylight to break
but the state of my heart
crawls melancholic, dragging itself upon the cold hard floor
and it drips
sticky like honey
this evenings passage
leaves me mostly aloof
and often adrift.

Your touch is like
the flutter
of butterfly wings
ghosting on my skin,
setting off an explosion of fireworks
causing ripples in time
and tsunamis to form
halfway across the world.

Real life isn't always perfection
Often it's nervously bitten digits and cracked nail polish.

Real life isn't always photogenic
Mostly it's oily faces and adolescent outbreaks.

Real life isn't perfumed or pretty
Sometimes it's pit stains and bad hair days.

Real life isn't a page in a glossy magazine
Airbrushed and edited to curveless perfection.

Real life isn't about salads and diet coke
It's more like ice cream and pizza at 3 am and fat days spent in yoga pants feeling sorry for yourself.

Real life isn't always smooth sailing
Rather it's more like "I hate you" one minute then "I love you" the next then "shut up, go away" right after that.

Real life isn't fantasy
It's the 9-5 grind and knowing you'll never make enough to afford all the things you want.

Real life is never how you expect it to be
So when you tell me that I'm beyond perfect and that you don't deserve me . . .

What do you expect me to do . . . degrade myself so I'm imperfect for you?

Today I walked past our spot
under the Sycamore where we used to lay
and all at once, those memories
of you and I
came rushing back like a flood.

I watched as they set the skies on fire
and the shadows cast were a golden hue
the violent winds danced with our silhouettes
gamboling in the shade of that lover's tree.

In that moment
you took my hand,
your incendiary stare igniting desires
setting fires
as you cast your handprint on my soul.

All the rivers have run dry
and all the bridges have been burnt to the ground
someone buried the hatchet ages ago
everyone knows but me
won't you turn around, you may see
a whirling mass of rolling ash
and there's me, standing solitary in the enveloping plumes
with hammer and tools in hand
no one told me you can't ever fix a broken heart.

I will never stop saying this. Just in case somehow the wind carries my message to you. I don’t pretend to think you’d ever stop to listen but just maybe, maybe on one of those occasions you’ll have your guard down. And over the din of the music and noise you might hear me. Or maybe in the silence of the night. In between the wake and sleeplessness. I’ll be there like a shadow of something in the past. I will never stop saying this.

Without my glasses I feel like I am running on a beach of diamonds.

Everyone says
it’s going to hurt now
before it gets better
but I don’t think
I can wait that long
or maybe
I just don’t want to let go.
I’d rather have something
than go on
with nothing.

There was a time
you meant the world to me
and holding your hand
was everything
I needed.

Thank you,
For making me happy.
For making me smile.
For making me laugh.
For making me cry.
For making me feel.
For being the charming gardener who makes the daffodils in my heart blossom with sweet delight.

Personally I think you are insane. You may be the most insane person I know. And trust me, I know a few. But out of all the insane people out the, I like you the best. Because you make waking up every morning something I look forward to doing. I can’t wait to receive your text messages. The ones I can’t help but smile from ear to ear reading. Or those phone calls where we talk for ages about the most ridiculous things. I don’t care that you’re killing my phone bill or that people may look at me funny for bursting out laughing like a fool from something I’m reading on my phone. Personally I think you’re insane but that’s what I like about you.

I cried for you
on the kitchen floor
and then decided
I wanted some coffee.

In the absence of the night
Everything wrong seems right
We need more dark
To cover up the crimes of your heart.

How strange
the world changes
from night to day
and back again
without slowing even to acknowledge
that my life will forever be night
because you
are no longer here.

Conscious yet half asleep in that crowded bus I caught a glimpse of you. In the middle of that humid night ride home I thought I saw you smile at me. And then you were gone.
I had lost you again.

A night as dark as this and
it feels like I’m not moving.
The endless sea of dark
echoes the malancholy of my heart.
Memories fill the emptiness
with a tinge of sorrow and regret.
The could haves
and should haves
punctuated with everything in between.
There’s nothing left
but a cold shiver down the spine.
The poetics of space will leave an aftertaste
of you and me and how it used to be.

Don’t say a word
come sit by the cool side of the bed
smoothe the velvet of your dress
and fix you into something you’re not
an illusion that has been bought
a reminiscense of this past
which is nothing
sober promises and wasted regrets
nothing but an idle landscape
to be revered
alone above an empty mantlepiece
irreplacable
unforgettable
unattainable.

I wanna be
your enraged sense of rejection
the one to lick the flames
of your hot Southern mess.