Right now these words will lie against the hum, the ambient noise, the pressure at the back of your knees, your tongue, your mouth, the knot in your shoulders and the cool exposed places on your body. I see that my gaze is frivolously considering through blinders not the meanings but objects that sparkle and shine in the sunlight. But when night falls how shall I proceed experiencing a different world with the same two eyes? The ordinary is investigated because the living is all that can be observed. Observed through the intricacies that mark the boundaries between dark and shadows, old and new. This was the meaning I found in the blurred vision of your shoulders and torso as I grappled through the fog of my own neural pathways.

You speak in cryptic kisses ( k i s s m e ) that you left littered
and staining my skin, black and blue from blows that once
caressed, now linger as phantom memories of phantom hands
that ******* undone. And those days, although so far
away from where I am, make me feel like a tourist in my own
body. One who stands barefoot outside in the cold, looking in
through the cracked and ***** windows of my weary eyes. But
would you return like a shark who smells blood or would you
wait like a predator in the shadows for me to completely
fall
   to
     pieces?
When all I am is a fusion of crossed wires and mixed
signals, a train barrelling through a dark tunnel of insecurities
and everything you ever said I was when I knew full well that
I wasn’t. Muscle and bone and marrow and guts, beating and
thumping in tune but out of sync to empty words and nonplussed
emotions. A heart that races for no apparent reason and familiar
faces carved into stone. Flowing through a river of blood like a
drunken sailor, with too much pride to ask for help but too much
guilt to set sail for home. So as a fool would do, I will quiver
as I drag my calloused heart towards the edge of the
mountain top where I will squint, and staring into the
setting sun place one foot in front of the other as
it singes my skin to the colour of my sins.

My satin sheets
were always bathed in starlight,
at least that’s what you kept repeating
But I just wanted you to know
that these walls
shine just as bright
in broad daylight
If you would have only waited
a couple more hours
to see darkness welcome in the morning
and I would have greeted you
with a smile so exuberant
that it would have put
the sun to shame.

One day
( hoping )
the wind will give wings
to my words
so they may touch you
until then they mark the
d   i   s   t   a   n   c   e
between you and my captive heart.

Too much time has passed
like water under the bridge I've burned
maybe you don't even care anymore
but would you just kiss me
one more time
with closed eyes
and you can pretend
I am whoever you want.

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 ****.

The men cut me open to have a look. They thought they could heal me so they sliced me in half. Instead of organs and blood all they found was a tangled mess of misfiring wires. They poked at the loose connections but nothing seemed to work. There was nothing but broken dreams and empty hopes. They sifted through unfinished sentences scattered among a tyranny of unspoken words. They tried and tried and tried until they tired. Wiping their brows they stitched me right up again and sent me on my way. Leave this for the next one, there’s nothing more we can do.

The night carries a sombre melody
on its wings, when emotions are raw
and we cry and we wail, but who will remember
those who passed quietly into the night?

Now phantoms, gone like the wind
rustling leaves. A force that can’t be seen, but felt
as it snakes its way through a labyrinth
of concrete jungles.

Forgotten ‘I love you’s’ and misplaced compassion
the  air of melancholy is thick and stifling, igniting a
collective mourning that only a few
truly understand.

So we pray and bow our heads, a solemn vow to
give anything if we could turn back time
doleful eyes streaked black with tears and teeth that grit
and fists that clench.

But nothing changes, and the world spins faster
and faster into the future when the futility of hoping
is a fleeting pleasure, dissipating into thin air
what once was a bleeding wound starts to heal and
nothing remains but the raised remains of an ugly scar.

So behind closed eyes dreamers conjure wild fantasies
and decadent dreams
a different night sky, one that begs to be looked upon
streaked with flourescent hues and flashes of lighting
where the stars light up like runway strips, welcoming
the weary traveller home.

And whispers of the ‘gone’ and the ‘going away’
become averted regrets and forgiven sins
where sadness is placed
in a museum of accidents, and the poetics of loneliness
isn’t allowed to exist.

I’m starting to forget
the little things about you
and how I said I’d never forget
I’m starting to forget
on a cellular level
the feeling I felt when your hand was in mine
and like tendrils of mist
your memory snakes away
slipping through my delicate fingers
but it is nugatory, wasted effort
like holding a phantom, praying day won’t come
because you are a shadow
slowly fading into the light.

I rose early to greet my lover
and when it was time for her to rise
I blew a kiss towards the heavens
and the skies blushed as the world awoke.

Liquid darkness dissipates into luminescence
as first light bathes the bowered pathways through a tangle of roses
it settles in the valley of your back
and on the delicate slopes of your shoulders
spreading within seconds
ink bleeding on paper
like the blissful unfurling of seraph wings that fill the horizon.

I can feel the earth pulsing with energy
outside the measured cadences of birds hum and sing and ring
I said to my soul, “be still and be quiet”
just remain enveloped in this consensual hallucination
within the seconds of light that shimmer between two dimensions
as specters of dust dance around your sleeping form
they catch the light and I am bewitched.

The darkness
is illuminated
by the
moonlight,
star lights,
headlights,
tail lights.
Look how
everything
is just so
b  e  a  u  t  i  f  u  l
tonight.

I sat and watched the bustling intersection. Our favourite cafe, our favourite lamp post, our favourite brownstone and tenement. All those people carelessly walking by not even remotely aware of the memories we carved out on these city sidewalks. This here is home. Home as reflected through the transient beauty of a stranger’s smile. Where do the lonely go to when everything reminds me of you?

Hey you,
Here’s a map
a path that leads
from my heart
straight to yours
if you look closely
you’ll see that although apart
mine’s cradled in your hands
and head to head
cheek to cheek
I wish I could kiss
all your demons away.

You are enshrined in my chest
where every thought I think
or word I ink
is borne of you,
so when you left
time was rinsed away

and I miss the most
all that I had lost.

In perpetual darkness
as I sit in the wreckage
there’s nothing
to carry the sound
of my heart
as it shatters to pieces.

I see nothing
as I float aimlessly
in a debris of memories
made
of you and me.

Do you ever get that feeling
that you’re not sure
if you’re awake or dreaming?

Because in this emptiness
under a cloak of weariness,
you are the past
that I am tethered to
and I am the astronaut
endlessly searching for love
within the galaxies
that pool in your amber eyes
thru a sea of asteroids
I’m hoping against hope
that you will find me first.

Feeling useless after those embraces
rapt in a nightmare dripping in gold.
The dark is tempting like the allure of sphinxes
as a nervous insomnia keeps me in the cold.
Levels of hysteria begin to boil over
with the same gravity he becomes her obsession.
This shadow play is replaced as a new lover
take my heart and begin its castration.

The shore’s deep cobalt waters gradually give way to sand and polished stone. Outside, raindrops crash to the ground like a string of pearls ripped from a delicate necklace. They scatter loose and bring to mind a painful, ecstatic heartbeat. Each drop caresses and kisses dead branches blackened by soot and flames. I’ll gather each pearl, searching on my hands and knees in the dying light. A futile practice but an exercise in remembering. But could anything remain on naked flame as tiny embers dance in the midnight air?

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.

Somewhere between the giddy of wake and sleep I thought I heard you whisper that I was the poetry in every conversation you’ve ever had. I smiled because the things I want lose out to the one I love.

Soul Beat
Sometimes, after a lull
my mind feels the need to remind me of you
and I take a shovel to the dirt
digging up buried images of you and I
and I awake
from a frenzied dream
breathless
and in the seconds I float between sleep and full consciousness
I taste your scent in the air
your fingers everywhere
the warmth of your skin lingers on mine
sweat soaked
my pulse races
pounding like a hammer through my chest
if only I could take a pair of secateurs
and deadhead the hurt and memories you left trailing
like vines around my heart
suffocating me
leaving me empty
gasping for release.

When you left
you stole the silence
from my bed
and vulnerable petals
fell like penance
from my eyes
as crashing waves
tossed my broken heart
upon an ocean
of bitter tears.

come Closer
but remember The First time when
I Was A Fool
… A Fool To Cry
”I Know I Know I Know”
my displaced pride exclaims
but Back In Your Head
i’m Walking With A Ghost
who whispers sweetly, “Goodbye, Goodbye”
maybe once i was your Heartthrob
but you kept shouting, “I’m Not Your Hero”
and the echoes reverberate against the stained glass windows of my heart
Where Does the Good Go
when things fall apart?
and Now I’m All Messed Up
and So Jealous refusing to Call It Off
the unnecessary flirting and asking for My Number
because i never claimed to be an angel
and the Dark Comes Soon
but you were well versed in This Business of Art
the art of illusion
but in spite of my warning that You Wouldn’t Like Me much
you went ahead and canonised me
and with that Sainthood i tried to Fix You Up with clumsy hands
frustrated I Can’t Take It
so stepping away i ask myself,
”How Come You Don’t Want Me?”
this relegation to my own version of Hell
when Freedom feels more like Dancing In The Dark
spinning wildly in your Living Room
and Under Feet Like Ours, broken glass
your hand holds me like the vice grip of an Alligator's bite
and when i was younger you always Drove Me Wild
as Love They Say
sometimes feels like kissing Underwater
to discover one another was like studying the Floor Plan of your heart
If It Was You, there would be me
and This Is Everything that we would need
i would be that Shock To Your System
the North Shore claiming lost ships like strangers embracing long lost lovers.

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.

Ocean waves rising and falling
she is breathing
   she is alive
and the midday sun kisses her great blue expanse
hitting her skin
  setting diamonds ablaze
forget the sunburn
forget its sweet sting
with a look in your eyes
nothing compares
  and nothing ever will.

Nothing beats a heartbreak
clenched fists and sweaty palms
gasping for air
on the bedroom floor
we cling to caricatures drawn with shaky hands
but who expects an honest portrait
laughing and yelling
under those conditions, you internalise them
no one said you had to be a superhero
when as you gaze out that train window
just remember
it’s the reflection that’s blurry
and not you.

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.

You are my last breath
the final pocket of air
I keep buried inside
before I die
a martyr
of the brutality of your love
transcended and
transfigured.

Between night owls and early birds there are spaces in between
Staring at the infinite indifference between a hello and goodbye
Falling through the gaps of recalled experiences
Those memories dance about
like dreams studded on transcendent celestial clouds
They echo and fade into the abyss of time
those who are left to reminisce
Tickled in suspended animation
Making us more then what we are
Blow them out one by one
Blow them out.

Your silence hits me
like a strong right hand
a 100 lb sock to eye
and it's coming in crystal clear
how about you take a big breath
and swig of honesty
because right now
we're standing at a crossroads
and this fragile heart
isn't so fragile anymore.

I could pretend to hate you
and say you never changed anything
and you can keep telling everyone
that I don't even figure
as a footnote in your life

but if I were to be honest
I would say that

your kiss is the one
I will compare all future kisses to

well now you know
and maybe, you even feel you have
some sort of power over me

well,
you would be right
while I'm floating aimlessly in your atmosphere
searching for some gravity
all you do is smile
like you know I'm a fool

well,
you would be right.

If wishes did come true
then I wish . . .
I wish I were the air
the air that sustains you
that causes your chest
to rise and fall
the one thing you
can't live without.

You’re staring at me
but all I see is a battlefield
of conflicted emotions
and your lips they move to speak
but your words cut deeper than knives
and it feels like I’m freezing in a house set on fire.

And those roses you gave me
have all turned black
clouded by your lies
I hold them close
but they crumble at my touch
as the visions were foretold
but my stubborn heart was never good at listening
and I waited,
as you floated somewhere between hope and despair
while the flames grow higher and consume me entirely.

Now all that remains
are the littered memories
your twisted words
like an echo
a train through a canyon
causing a landslide
tangling me within
whirring like a hurricane
blurring the skies
and turning green fields black
all I can do,
is turn away
as those bridges quietly burn.

We don’t speak anymore
but I still hear every word you said
those stinging nettles they hurt like hell
I sit in these dreams
and I know you’re not listening
but right now I wish you would save me
on days when my thoughts
feel like a stranger I’d rather not know
and when my last flicker of hope
dies out like the cigarette I stub
so I turn up the TV to drown out your voice
but nothing helps
I’m too tired to resist
the pull of the waves and I’m drifting off course
without a compass, without a sail
into the unknown where everything takes me back,
to you.

You’ve scorched the sky
and now you sit
listening to the pulsing beats
while searching for my voice
between your satin sheets.

Your smile sets me ablaze
and I swoon to the sighs of a confetti of tears
You offered me the world
and a stage of my own
And without permission you plunged deep into my subconscious mind.

Wanting more leaves you chasing whispers
Like a vanishing a shadow that fades into the light
A wreckage heavy with guilt
Sinking fast, into the depths of the unknown.

So there I stand with my heart in my hands
Pledging that to the last hour of my life
You cannot be anything but to remain
every part of me, every part of my being
Every good
Every evil.

Left alone in the wandering night
I shall end my book in the comforting shadows
In the uncertainty of the future
In the haunting of the past
And that is where I shall find myself living.

Like breath on a windowpane the people you meet leave a transparent mist on your soul. It’s like that orchestra that doesn’t want to be silenced. Because in the infinite spaces of your mind no one really leaves. They just lie and wait for the right time.
They’re like light; it doesn’t bend and it doesn’t break.

My body is finally letting go
of the home
     I have made in this maddening silence.
           But it is I,
if there is anyone
     to be blamed,
for carving poems into my skin
and breathing a spirit into them
    in the image of you.

Walking down the street
Smiling quietly with me but by yourself
Hands in your pocket
Something on your mind
Fire escapes and fences
The holiday lights dancing some kinda magic off of your brown hair
Remember that Spring a few years back
You kissed me and I tasted your salty lips
No traditions, no gift exchanges,
Just a mistletoe hanging from the clear blue sky
Dresses and ties and blazers and heels
You’re my somebody to share the holidays with
You’re my someone to kiss
You’re my someone at midnight holding hands under a streetlight
And you’re my someone in those quiet secret moments
What a sweet souvenir
If I let my mind talk,
You are that sweeping statement, the summing up of everything I chant subconsciously.

In the absence of your company
there are two things that happen

the first:
I miss you terribly
as I remember the little things that you used to do
the way your hair was always perfect
except for those moments when it was a perfect mess
you hated it then but I loved the imperfection.

I loved you when you thought you were unlovable
I loved you when you were a ball of nerves, a wreck of insecurities
because I saw you then
the person you were trying to be and the person you really were
if you’d only let yourself be.

In those moments I wanted to just grab you by your delicate hip bones and pull you closer
to tell you that this was you, and you are beautiful
in spite of the bite marks on your knuckles and the bruises that covered your young heart.

I would have held you tight like a bandaid
I would have blanketed you in kisses to chase away the pain
I would have bandaged your bloodied stumps with my words
and caressed your amputated soul.

I would have made you smile so often
people would think it was tattooed on your face
because your smile was magik
the way it started at the corners of your mouth
and travelled up to your eyes
like waves breaking and crashing on the shore
you caused a tsunami in my heart
and I’ll admit, I still feel you in my bones, like an aftershock once in a while.

I miss the way your eyes would wander to my mouth as you watched me speak
sometimes I got so self conscious wondering what you saw in me.

And remember that time you just had to feel me close to you
that you hugged me so tight and wouldn’t let go
do you remember because I will never forget.

I asked what was wrong and you said you felt needy and just had to feel some skin on your skin
that was the easiest you ever loved me because all I had to do was stand there
maybe that was the most honest you ever loved me
or was that you giving me hints that you were slowly leaving
was that the long goodbye?

I guess I’ll never know.
I bought into the promises born in your heart that died on your lips.

Remember the time you couldn’t keep your hands off me
when words were an inadequate commodity
insufficient at conveying how we both felt about each other
it was more hands and touching than words and talking.

In the absence of your company
there are two things that happen

the second:
I hate you
I hate how you make me feel
like I wasn’t good enough for you
and I hate that you made me believe I could have been.

When did it become so hard
when did wanting someone become such a chore
I was working my *** off trying to be worthy of you
and although love takes no prisoners
of all the people out there
I never thought it would be you

to drive that stake through my heart
and twist it just so I knew you meant it.

I hope you know your leaving has left tears like a junkies tread marks staining my cheeks
it would have been so easy to make me yours
in fact I guess I was
you had me wrapped around your fingers
around the poetry you wrote
I danced with every syllable and alphabet
twirling at your every whim and desire.

I’d have gone to hell for you if you asked me to
but I was never riding shotgun on your little adventure
it was more like me running 5 steps behind you
waiting for you to turn your head a little so I could catch a glimpse of your face
and when you did it felt as if the sun was shining on me
I didn’t realise you were turning back for someone else.

I guess you cheated us both
the difference is that you didn’t choose me
and a loser is a loser not matter who the competition is
in a court of Kings I was the arrogant Jester
and you choose your Queen among the royals.

Hidden under your shadow I was catching crumbs from your table
until you were no longer hungry
and I was left to starve.

In the absence of your company, a third thing happens:
I learn to be strong
I learn to survive
I learn to get along
and I’m getting along just fine
… well maybe not “just” fine but I’m getting along.

It doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t still skip a beat when I see your face
or that my stomach doesn’t fill with butterfly’s at the mention of your name
I still freeze for a moment, a deer caught in headlights.

But these days when I fall asleep it’s no longer to the rhythm of a broken heart
I lit a fire and set our memory ablaze
in fact, there are times I go whole days without you traipsing all over the dying embers of us
kicking up memories and stirring up emotions.

And I may not be the same old me
but I’m not who I used to be
and in those twilight moments when you get lonely and want to revisit the memory of us
before you send me a text at 3 in the morning
why don’t you flip your pillow over to the cooler side
and hold your friend tight
because that could’ve been us
but you chose someone else.

In that crowded restaurant, the air was thick with smoke my head was lost in a gentle buzz. The din of the dinner crowd was matched only by the music blaring on the loudspeakers. It was so loud I could not even hear myself think. A good excuse to lean in close whenever you spoke. I pretended not to hear you the first two or three times just so that you would remain inches from my face. You were so close that I could feel your hot breath on my cheek. I watched your lips move and tried to focus on what you wee saying. Every instinct told me I should lean a few inches forward and close that gap between us. But there were too many people watching. That restaurant was too **** well lit for even the briefest of encounters between waiting lips. I’m sure people were watching us. I’m sure people were watching you. Could they tell what was on both our minds? The elderly couple behind you kept looking at us. Maybe they thought we were siblings. How funny that would be because just then, you grabbed my hand from off the table and placed it on your thigh. You could’ve been a little drunk but I didn’t mind at all. Maybe I was a little bit intoxicated as well. Intoxicated on your perfume, your smile, your eyes and your thigh under my hand. You didn’t care that now you’d caught everyone’s attention. The bar manager saw and I guess he was smiling. Because given half a chance I bet he would have loved to be me at that moment. But you were with me and I was getting lost in the way your lips moved when you spoke. You kept drinking and I wished I could be the libation that would quench your thirst forever. I wished that I could be everything you ever needed. And I kept wishing we weren’t in that busy restaurant and I cursed that table for being so small. Maybe it was the smoke, or that look in your eyes, but if you would have asked me, even in a hesitant whisper, I would have taken you home with me immediately. But instead we sat there and our mouths spoke of the mundane whilst our eyes communicated the profane. I kept drawing circles on your thigh. Hoping the signal I was sending out was loud and clear. Why’d you have to be so close yet so far away?

Your voice remains
and it echoes through the canyons
of my mind,
it would try to take me
from absent friends with hollow smiles,
still I listen and use the needle of my compass
to sew up the pieces
my broken heart.

"One wild and precious life", he says as he shows me the skull he had impulsively tattooed on his ******* as a symbol that things should not be taken for granted. I’ll sit with him in a diner as he sips his weak lemon tea and talk about the reasons stars twinkle up in the sky. Some made-up story I’ll likely believe about constellations and moonbeams and how nothing is what it seems. And when it’s late, he’ll call me and tell me he needs to share something cool he just read. I’ll wonder if he ever sleeps as I doze off listening to him drone on and on and on about poetry, social revolutions, communism and the art of keeping sketchbooks. And in the morning I wake to a phone under my pillow hoping I didn’t embarrass myself by saying something I shouldn’t have. I’ll bump into him in the library reading some tattered old manuscript and he won’t mention anything about last night. He’ll just look up at me for a brief moment, smile because I did say something embarrassing then quickly bury his face back into his book. Red faced I’ll sit beside him and slap him on the arm as we burst into fits of uncontrolled laughter, hidden between rows of books.

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".

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.

We don’t need another McDonald’s,
Starbucks
or fat frying KFC
maybe just stop stuffing your face,
your ears, your mind
with all that BS they’re feeding you on TV
put down your smart phones
your tablets, your notebooks
just put them ****** things down
and look at me
coz if you ain’t ready to turn off and tune in
then maybe you should quit calling me baby
why don’t you return my keys
and forget my number while you’re at it
hey,
I wasn’t put on this earth
to be your charging plug point
for when your batteries are low
so don’t call on me
when you find some scraps of time
in your busy schedule
or when your boo forgets about you
and you need a shoulder to cry on
I ain’t your momma or your all day restaurant
and I sure as hell ain’t your personal ATM,
or your get-outta-jail free pass
if you ain’t here for me now
then all you’ll see
is the trail of dust I leave
as I drive away from your sad *** life.

No, there's no such thing as a long goodbye
that's just me, dragging out the inevitable.

And no, I'm not blaming you
maybe I wished too hard that it would last a lifetime
I should've adopted your cynicism on love
that would've saved my soul from impossible heartbreak.

And no, I don't stay awake keeping up the stars anymore
this time they wait on me, watching
as I sleep soundly in a field of clover cradled in love.

And no, I'm not thinking of you or crying again
I wake up, pull open the curtains
stare wide eyed at how beautiful the world is
and how it was never anything but the way it has always been.

And no, I'm not broken anymore.

You taught me to love things especially when they come by as infrequently as the twinkle you get in your eyes when you’re really happy. So here’s what we’ll do: we’ll pack some lunch and take a walk on this perfect afternoon. You can pick out a grassy patch somewhere beneath the shade of a Mimosa tree and there we’ll talk about silly things. And between the witty banter and stupid jokes we’ll fall in love all over again to the soft soundtrack of the city humming away in the near distance.

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.

There were dandelion wishes carried gently in the wind. I think I even saw crimson birds dance with the butterflies as the sun was split into a million rainbows reflected in their tiny wings. I kept thinking that there must be someone out there who still believes in making wishes. Someone who believed that there were things worth wishing for. Beautiful things such as those that cannot be seen or touched but instead felt within the heart. I closed my eyes as I let the smell of grass and sun kissed flowers envelope me like a friend.

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.