the kitchen darker
your steps
planned with precision

amounts of time
pass quietly
but changes
are a different breed

the coffee mugs abandoned
still know my lips
better than yours
the humming stove
is singing songs
you used to sing to me

each day
your broken heart
collects tiny
atrocities
each day
the lamps lose more of their
forgotten dream
to shine

The residue of ***** lined the empty bottle.
A deep inhale of smoke,
an exhale of problems.

Lightheaded I fumble,
clasping a cold lifeless piece of metal.
I cried "save me"
release all my demons.

I am safe for now,
drowning in a sea of crimson security.

My love for you didn't perish
In our clash of silent indifference
That devoured me whole
And tore me apart from you
Instead
In our departure
I became the moon
Forever separated by a force of unrequited attraction
And pushed and pulled by the invisible strings of tidal longings
That never bring me close enough to you
Yet
I tirelessly revolve around you
To give you light when your sun is too weary to
And hide in the dark at your brightest,
Afraid to steal any light away from you.
I have always been here for you
Whether or not you knew.
Whether or not you loved me too.

See me.
Really see me.
As I see you.

I've heard of you woman,
I knew your eyes were oceans
and your heart was a sacrifice
long before I came burning out of the desert.

I know that you were beaten
and I know you had your soul ripped out
by the ones who ought to have cherished you.

But I....I am not those men.
I was not sent here to take
but to give.

I long for the lost gardens of Cordova,
for the glory that was love and light
along the banks of the Guadilqivir
that river still flowing through my heart.

Yes, by all means test my resolve,
I have witnessed too much horror
to let one more heart be wasted.

I want to love you,
I want to take your suffering heart
and pour all the love God has given me
into your many wounds.

But it isn't in my power to do that,
It isn't given to me to rewrite your
book of tears and sacrifice.

I have been sent here,
journeying so long and so far
that I had nearly forgotten what
a home felt like until I woke
with you in my arms.

You kissed me,
and I heard the music again.

You touched my soul,
and the rains came at last.

You open my heart,
and I remember.

My mother first wrote it
on my birth cert
by street name, by nature.

“You shouldn’t do that,
you’re no race horse.”
Then why am I running, running

perpetually
carrying little men who kick me.
Filling the hole won’t fill me.

If I eat sugar, orange candy
and lots of honey
I won’t hear the boys be mean to me.

I didn’t want to.
He’d just got in from work
and flung the keys
into the bowl
so the clatter rattled
into the kitchen
where I was taking out
the chocolate fingers
from the Sainsbury’s bag
and I still hadn’t shut
the fridge door
so my right arm
was going cold.

He came up behind me
and groaned
and I assumed it meant
he’d had a long day
except everybody’s day
is the same length
but he put his arms around
my chest
subtracted the bottle
of Gordon’s gin
from the bag
and said we’ll be drinking
some of that tonight
I could do with it.

Then it came.
He asked if I’d called.
I said no because
what am I supposed to say
it’s too far to drive
on a Friday night
and they’ve got roadworks
on that roundabout still
but he butted in
like a cough in a quiet room
and said fish
and chips for tea then
been a while.

Picked up the phone
offered it to me
as though a pig’s ear
to a Labrador
and I thought stuff it
as he shut the fridge
so I reluctantly poked
at the numbers
and heard the bloop
again and again
and said to my mother
how’s this evening.

Sorry yes sorry
what yeah OK
no better right I see
yeah my fault I know
that long right yeah
so half seven
yep OK half seven.

It’s just I don’t like
the idea of monitors
and plastic-y tubes
and doctors with PhD’s
spurting words
buried in a dictionary’s depths
but he put his hands
around my chest again
and we said nothing
for a moment or two
until he said
I’m going for a shower babe
alright.

They said they had to **** my dreams
because I didn't have enough zeroes.
In other words, Mr. Doe, you were
                     lied to by your heroes;
money isn't everything,
but not having it is being invisible.
You can work sixty hour weeks,
but only earn ways to be miserable.

My parents paying four-fifty, monthly
-- which is not a lot of money; we had
to eat out of cans and delude ourselves
into thinking it was funny. Sorry, Does;
                              sorry for your woes --
but America is the big hunter, and your
                            death is how it grows.

We were not equal; no account because
                   we had no account. Asked by
our family members if we bought junk
                      in a large amount. I'm sorry
to disappoint myself -- but I
                                         cannot afford
                                                   to lose.
I am the result of a flawed America
                                     that has learned
                                                to abuse.