I opened up for you
like you were also asking me to
but when I peeled back salted skin
to expose those secrets feathered in

you didn't try to patch the pieces
you didn't come to suffer those creases
and now my bones are all alight
and you are nowhere in sight

I called for you like I wouldn't before
because you had been there at my door
always insistent that I let you in
but now I sit here with weeping skin

this is why I bolt the hatches
set fire to our strings with those matches
push away any who wander near
for there is no love to be found here

if you come back will you find
solace or no piece of mind
I don't know if I can stay
or if you want me to, anyway.

There are eight hours left in the day
yet it's dark outside
where those cars keep tearing past
disturbing the quiet in here.

I'm trying not to feel alone
rattling around in this empty home
but when I caved and I called out
you didn't call back.

Steps have been taken
will your path revisit this place?
I sit in our home and remember
the beginning, in this room

with the cars still racing by
and it was still dark outside
and your arms were around my shoulders
and your heart was shouting yes.

the tv is too loud and my peeled skin
echoes bleeding beaching, I can't get out
and  next door are screaming

a riot of colour and life and celebration
hurts so much I am taut of breath,
please I need help but the words
won't trip off my tongue

I can't bear the uproar
water flashing, roaring , oh
god the suffocation with the sound
of inebriation

I am trying but I

can't
stand it
anymore.

You are crying out for aid
I can taste the salt
from across the oceans
from across his seas

your sobs are rabid
and my words soft
the only weapon here
against the frothing tide

A whimper down the lines
yes, you have done
what needed to be done
yet the waters are still churning.

It is dark outside and

the winter is creeping in again and

you are not here again and

I am here again and

it never ends and

it's dark outside.

I kneel
kneecaps cracking, head bowed
under the heavy breath of your adoration
eyes ground into the dust each footstep rises

I am dirt-blind
but the crows can see, my ears bleed
how they cry and scream, weep and admire -
they enshrine him; I, unwilling, immortalise.

I keep
my eyesight clouded, looking down
the soil is my church, inadequacy
a mired crown.