I feel like the white lion
stuck in a cage for the rest of my days
feet set to tread a path barred and dusty
from all of those who trod before it.

The only excitement, the jangles of
keys from the keeper who runs to
throw carcass of rabbit, turkeys
through my bars for me
to render sustenance, incomplete.

I fear the white lion
hear my lonely roar and wonder
at such talons, canines now stolen
and feet dismembered, claws ripped
from their shackles, top-of-the-food-chain
fear desecrated.

And a genetic time-bomb too
ticks under my skin and theirs
as I sit and I listen to the lies
your children now share.

My line also ends, a mere stutter
in the sand, as the tides flow steady
and the last lion lingers.

And I am, too, held high like a beacon,
a warning, a message spanning
centuries, look, children, look!
See the mistakes of your ancestors.

See how her coat shines so very bright
that it reflects all seven colours
of the light? See how lonely and low
the last of a manipulated, mistaken,
misconstrued species can go?

She was drawn from her mother
mixed with her father, no she doesn't need him
and the others, why yes, all left
are her kin!

How wonderful, how quaint, you
know only ten now remain?
None in the wild of course, where
their life cannot sustain,
better here locked under our
constraints where we have
so much wonder, so much recreation
and education to gain.

And true, from this bleak place
they can never migrate
but look at her, no where else to go
this man-made mistake.

Don’t worry about the pacing,
the maddened, gleaming eye
the freedom they miss
out there? They would die!
And they know no other way
than this.

I know she looks sad, but
that’s just your feelings projecting,
they’re just animals, my darling,
you’re innocent, shouting in consternation
save her in the name of conservation!

But we are all white lions
all now endangered, our steps
are no freer, our lives all
subject to external changes and we
cannot move but for the cage
they have constructed, their
lives are impacted but our
wonder is not deducted.

I feel like the white lion
this ambassador of our greatness
this one mistake, so very clever,
engineered to engage us, these lives that
were wrought solely to entertain us.

I feel it, their future entwined in mine
and in humans across the ages.

Meaning of life designed, its sibilant message
dangerous, a dumb animal wandering
a set path, disregarded, destructive, aimless.

You compose my inadequacy,
this front which I present is not true
for I do not want to love you
and you do not want me to.

Love is false;
I trick myself into it every time.

I can never let myself go
completely

because I am afraid
that I will drift apart

like motes of dust on a sunbeam
yet not quite as beautiful

and somewhat more meaningless.

There's a sister who floats with hungry collarbones and a razor-edged smile. She smokes sadness when she isn't ready to exhale.

She is beauty in fine art and wrath the colour of thunderstorms; the rain comes when she smiles.

Holier than thou and quick to judge, with antiseptic perception known to bring out the things you were not aware existed.

Addictive, those imprints from her feet will stamp all over you; nimble fingers puppeteering those who fall out of her thoughts.

She is selfish and always leaves, leaves, leaves. She ran away at the first tremor; she did not stay to watch the concrete crumble.

But she picked me up when the concrete friction broke my knees, lashed tyrants with her tongue and prowled behind the boyfriends that came and always went.

This sister whom I project; the image of her I mirror. She is love and laughter and moods that taper and flare.

She is a cluster of persons, a bomb liable to a detonate on a short fuse. She is trouble ailing in the best possible way; her flames light up the shade.

I met you at the station
you said wanted to go anywhere but here.

I said to look for the tracks that
are the most uninviting. You
took my arm. I wished for

something better and here it came,
disguised by dirt, dislocation and greying days.

Your ticket says no return but
mine is undefined, watchful, ready
to bolt or to linger. You say you love
the stations from afar.

There's not much of me
requested, but the splinters that you
do, I gift hopelessly. The

smallest glimpse of light approaching
filtered through dank, oppressive air
are superior, surely? than finite life
exhausted watching the dark.

By the night you amplify,
when you have enjoyed my fill and
left with little but fingerprints and
recollections, casting parallel shadows
on directions that await.

I give you almost everything
except for the words that
travel nowhere but my head.

You gave me the signal
a briefest flash of red
that stopped this in its tracks.

I refuse to be half of one whole
For I am enough always
To stay silent surrounded by seas
And as Ellan my will shall remain
Constant, contained and content
For it turns out that I need you not
And that I want you even less.

You spoke longed words,
artefacts dusted with time
and careful caution.

We fall into sleep
in a haze of tangled limbs
and your lips kissing my neck.

With each of your breaths
I rise, feeling your heart shout -
finally.

ever since my childhood broke and the safety net disintegrated
I've been running and holding it high above, arms aching
in a futile attempt to stop things falling through
woven seams. Sometimes it works and I stare up,
neck burning, to the things I cannot touch.

I do not look down to the debris scattered around me,
to the failures of my braced shoulders, slipping through like water;
impacting like stones.

once I caught a fisherman; he threaded silver secrets
through twine using smiles and sympathy and I lowered my arms, to keep him alongside. There were some places he couldn't reach but
that was ok, because we ran for an eternity ensnared in each second.

it was a particularly beautiful day when I noticed him slowing,
staring out to sea, steps faltering and new smiles forming that
were not faced to me. He left me and dived headfirst, forgetting that
fisherman cannot swim. He drowned as I ran on, arms outstretched
above me as the net danced in the wind and everything fell through.

I have never stopped, never ceased these thundering steps;
my eyes are still turned to the sky, the holes in my net cast
beautiful shadows and through them I see the stars and wait impatient
for the night when they too fall.

Green tea equations and cigarettes and
a distinct lack of food and
dark night lovely lonely walks and
maybe tomorrow
she will wake in a life
where she can love all parts of herself.

Can you feel that?
What a wondrous sensation.
She takes cold hands and
questions and buries them
in that empty stomach that
sings loudest when she fails
at sleeping. This girl with worn patches
and an overwhelming sense of
irony; there's too much to her
but still she is not enough.

The other day, as my tears weren't drying,
I wrote   'stop hating yourself'
in hope, on my left arm.

I carried it round with me the next day,
hidden under clothing and smiles
praying the words would sink in.

That black ink would slide under
Subcutaneous layers; deep within marrow
Sparkling kindle within.

A week later there was no trace to be found
of those words or that false hope.

Those permanent marker promises
which I can't say I broke,
because I never made them in the first place.

There was a girl to be seen sometimes,
her breath at the pulse of my throat
and fingers wrapped, such elegant porcelain
skin pressed against my forehead.

She fell into my eyes and I swallowed her
not whole, only those little bits she left.

She does not nourish me,
only curls up in my liver where guilt
prickles every time I let the toxins in.

The only words she spoke reverberate in my lungs
so each of our breaths whisper what I am not -
'when I was younger I knew I could be anything
it was only when I got older that I forgot.'

I walk through the groves and the singing treetops
silence enrobing every sound, in these places where
people lay still living, under the ground,
for here the grass grows the greenest
and the trees all stand tall, yes
they are gone, but they did not long fall.

My hands are tongue-tied, my mouth
a shutter that ***** open in the wind;
empty words parade their ground but I

think now before I speak.

You watch my movements, tracking each
for the abnormal; waiting for me to mess up
and forget to hide these crimes

you so carefully cultivated.

I jump in the darkness, so you see things
which are not there; shivering screaming
silence, spoken aloud only when

your distance we both share.

I let the water seep into my skin
lying on the balcony in the mist,
head down, searching for the sky.

I won't tell you I did this
you would only say I was insane.

He won't be back at 9, like he said,
or at 10, at 11 or 12,

what is here
to come back for.

The starched warm slinking smell that burns as
you breathe in clean acid and words like biggestrisk
and wellpotentially… Ireallywouldn'tadviseit and
I'dsayI'msorrybutit'sunproffessional and I stand
and nod and say 'I understand?' and then the door
behind is closed and the corridors are crowded and
I can't escape these facts they have poured in my ears
and they're sinking into my brain and I just want to
cry in my mothers arms but she's so weak to emotions
and I couldn't possibly worry her and have her sink
again, so I move, each step a
knife in my foot and a numbing in my head as
around me the flurries of life and death go on despite
the fact that I
seem to have stopped.

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.

How do I explain that
today is a day I loathe myself
till red raw bones slip out of
their skin cages and bitter tendons

snap snap snap, ribs twisted,
fingernails gripping this bloodless face
white polka dot prints darkening
later to purple, I want to run away

but I cannot leave this house, I want
to forget but not to forgive, burning acid
sickening my stomach, I ***** hatred
at the mirror, there is nothing

good here, there is only
violence spinning a coin
and me.

True I am not one for declarations or discussing emotions,
if I keep you around then that's enough of a notion
that yes, perhaps I will fall to love you, one day in the
future, not right now is true. I will never willingly
admit to being the fallen, more likely to distance
and cautiously move on then risk the words slipping
from my tongue to yours, as we kiss on dark corners
and leave late night bars. How many times has happiness
skipped me by? Living so opaquely and lying with my
eyes, as you take my lips but never do take my hands, I
could love you, dear J, but I'm too scared to stand.

This image you project is one I cannot pierce, I do not know
if you feel when I am in tears, whilst you do not know that
that yes they have fallen for you, our bodies make such awful love
that our minds are askew, tied to decimations old lovers cast,
for it seems two stones do not make a love that can last.

The light catches his body and
will not let it go, as I lie

and smile and make the appropriate
movements, always thinking -

my head never shuttering, never silenced
as I count up the crimes of the day,

reflected from sight of the light of him,
slapping my face as it hits.

She faces the wall, studies
those tiles with minute precision, hand
outstretched on the towel rack, a bathroom
ballet dancer, poised, still, silently waiting
waiting, waiting.

Lids so heavy, slow now to blink,
suffocating breath with light caught,
suffocating speech with the skin
pulled taut.

Is it safe yet to face
that most sibilant refraction,
why do these fingers clench tighter
the more I try to let go.

Dear Seb,
My infatuation with you did not impress.

Dear Josh,
We were 5000 feet above sea level, with a fear of heights.
Desperation fuelled the climb.

Dear Dave,
You were my first love.
You chew me up and refuse to spit me out.

Dear Dan,
I am sorry.

Dear Alex,
You should be sorry.
Black and purple did not suit my skin.

Dear Shea,
We tried too hard.
We lived in too many shadows.

Dear Dave,
I cannot get you out of my bones.
You squat beneath my ribcage.

Dear Craig,
You gave me disillusion with meaningful words.
I tried to love you.

Dear Joe,
You are breathtaking and the everything of everything.
And I do not know how to be enough.

Dear Keith,
Why did we do it?

Dear Theo,
I would have broken that softness in your eyes.

Dear Dave,
Your indelible imprint colours everything I do.

Dear Cameron,
You are my what's next.

Dear Joe,
You stroked my hand and my hair to wake me.
You are afraid of me.

Dear Dave,
I still remember every word.
Every one.

Dear Lucas,
In my head we had infinity.

Dear Matthew,
I was a vacuum in your life.
Together we were less than nothing.

Dear Joe,
You are the birds singing at dawn.
Why do you want me?

Dear Dave,
I still remember.

There's a body in the trunk
I tell the policeman
and he steps back, hands up
in the face of an invisible gun.

I'm allergic to you
I tell the boy,
because acting crazy is
the only way to make him leave.

I love another
I say to the man,
creeping fingers insistent
against soft skin.

I ******* hate you
I shout at strangers,
wicked words are unwelcome
and their desperation chokes.

I've got chlamydia
I tell another
and he vanishes,
it's my very best trick.

I did not want this
I said to drunken man,
do not look at me, those starving eyes,
you've already consumed me whole.

There's a body in the trunk
I whisper to the policeman
but he does not see it as I see it,
the empty cavern that yawns wide.

He tells me lying is a sin,
sternly pulls down whatever's left
"be a good girl" he sings so sweetly
but does not condemn what was theft.

Yes, you left.

but yet here remain? Innate and insurmountable.

Your body is the ocean
rippling and unfathomable,
eyes a wavering, wandering, azure blue
set always to be drawn away
before rushing back; sending
salted spray slaps against my skin.

I wax and I wane
and you're set, sometimes, to do the same
as this your tempestuous tides do echo,
with your ebb and your flow, our highs and our lows
but when we're both at our greatest height
there's glory in our gravitation.

you shiver when you look into my eyes,
these beacons of sharp, darkening grey,
and sometimes, only sometimes, just
as the spring tide exults,
it seems like the oceans in love
with the fickle full-moon.

It seems you stole the easier path, to hate me
as words cut back those strangling branches

but deceiving eyes need only small sense to see
that it was you who decimated all of our chances.

It is strange how looking at an image of you
from so long since last looking into your eyes,

That I can still remember every breath caught
every moment of each second lived
in every silver touch standing in your eyes,
where it was like being seen for the first time,
until you saw too much and too deep and too fast

and then you blinked and I was gone.

Removed from your thoughts and from your life and from your love
which moved on to another, more worthy,
upon whom you can look longer, stand taller, gaze deeper
than I can ever hope to achieve to be.

Anya sings words I would
rather she have not spoken
and decimates what little remained
between us all.

He looks to me and I
pointblank-sawnoffshotgun refuse
to meet sight of sapphire sky eyes
now too singing along
to her song.

My mother always said
you were two sides of the same paper
and you will both slice me the same.

But scissors always win;
laceration's chorus croons to all.

Origami smiles
so carefully cultivated as
I kindle our final swansong,
a celebration in flames -

simultaneous ignition of
friends to lovers
and that irrevocable rendering; razing
lovers to ash.

Sometimes silence is preferred
To those constant constricting string of compliments  
Written in your words and thrown off your tongue
With careless heed of the damage that they do
Irrevocable words of the lies of love and lust
Drip drip dripping down from your lips
To fall simultaneously in hearts and in the gutter
Where ******* collects and rains pour down
Eradicating all trace, but for the heart in which it kindled
No recognition from lips whose secret they once held
Now long forgotten and poorly remembered;
Lacklustre speech trailed and its meaning dismembered
Ill-gotten feelings poorly deceived when hopefully conceived  
From the deceptions which derided and descended
From lips once bloodied; now full of false testament.

Gravity rips raindrops from
the sky to the earth of my face,
as your fingertips violate the soft
skin of each cheek I offer.

You tell me, I make you so happy,
as salt flows viscous in the pitch
of our bedroom and I say nothing
and you say, nothing much, either.

I bring colour to a life you have never led
and I punish you for it with my silence
and my soft steps and my one single smile,
bequeathed so very grudgingly.

You try, it's true, but I am too far gone now,
too lost in her eyes as she looks at this
shadow of you that I have readily created,
this masochistic need to hurt myself.

I love you; it's times like these I know it
best, the times when I am so insubstantial
that I cannot even bring myself to speak
words I am bleeding to scream at you.

What sick love is this?
When the only time I am sure of it,
is when I feel so very very very
unsteady in your palm.

The night slinks away, with the full force
of sunlight unrefined burning
through slotted blinds.

So ends the the first time I have slept with
someone whilst tears leak from my eyes,
and I cannot say I will ever do it again.

It is tomorrow as I stray solitary
and walk myself awake, standing
on the grass that grows the greenest
on this here higher side
where the moon sleeps on the shadows
above your mud-cloaked body.

This silver orb, so tempestuous,
upon it still can always be relied
whilst here feet find, to be at its fullest elevation,
grass glowing silver and stones a sibilant, sacrificial grey;
as the gravity of that oval brightness
diminishes all other light.

My bare feet ***** down the flora
that grows hopeful from your skin
and up I turn, looking for comfort
in a bare and barren sky
where even the brightest stars,
those thousand sharpened shards
of brittle glass glimmering,
fade too into blackness

as here, cloaked in this shining dark,
I am reminded
that the full fury of the sun rests so still now,
held blind beneath my weary feet.

I don't believe you.

I don't subscribe to your thoughts
and the words that trickle out
of your head, to fall ******
on the pavement and disappear
down the gutter when
the rain comes.

I hope the rain comes soon.

A raging, rampant monsoon
to flood me dry and clean away
the raw, red finger-prints your diction
imprinted, a blood-red necklace ringing my throat.

I don't care for your intonation.

You, heedless of the power
of speeches simple sounds that decimate
veins and rupture explosive, ebony vessels,
setting me adrift on Moses' sea.

But, despite all, I reply in kind.

And
careless words leave me;
cutting you open.

You are beautiful.
There is no denying it,
that darkness of your eyes and I could cut myself
on the line of your jaw, black stubble defying
youthful skin. Everyone sees it,
the graceful strength secreted in those
muscles, taut and lean, life lived to
challenging extremes. It is odd, this
obsession with aesthetics, your face really
means nothing and I know this, yet I can
still fall into staring at your fearful
symmetry, grace and night entwined
as you walk on unaware.

It is too dark and too late and too soon

It’s always the daytime someplace
And if we were there you would say
It’s too light and too early and too late

And so neutrality would be preferred,
To maintain ourselves on both sides of the fence?

Either side of the fence, you mean
For opposite we stand and shall remain
Until you let me climb over
Where the grass is green

It is no greener here
And all the more feet for trampling
Would ruin what is already bruised
And which would never grow back

I would not trample you.

We were talking about the grass
But now, yes, you will obliterate me
If you take but one step closer

Darling I will leave you
If you do not burn down that dratted fence

Oh my darling,
you were never mine for me to be left.

Connections bring out the worst in me.
Sitting next to you, dark brown eyes
that light up too readily, lips turning at the corners
and a laugh that brings out mine, instinctively.

Secrets shared and confidences brokered
as we lean in and whisper, co-conspirators
facing the world, as a unit we rise together,
my thoughts mirrored on his face.

Tongue in cheek exchanges and insults
parodied and paraded between cross-roads,
intersects as we dance verbally, smiles
all too often exchanged as I know, now,
that I am heading for the fall.

That one that I always anticipate, the one that
has only happened once before, excitement
coursing in my veins as I try to tell myself stop,
think, take a breath and see the wall where this ends.

I can't help it though, his presence is like lightning,
as I glow from within enjoying this brief moment.
Desolation brews, but it is future-bound and I give
myself to the moment, pleasure paid for with future pain.

He is not mine, nor will he ever be,
we will never dance again and our eyes will not meet.

I am trying to find pleasure in past moments
but now gravity claims me, my loss is only my own,
as he falls back into the non-existence from whence he came
and all that now remains is the absence of him.

I saw fire light, this night whilst
your fingers skimmed my jaw.

It's way past time but
your face is inches from mine
and my fingers dance freedom
on your skin; sleep is for  
the absence of him.

I saw star light, this night whilst
you dropped words like bombs.

I'm so tired today I can taste
the movements of molecules haste,
tripping in each moment bare
and slipping through sweet salted air.

I saw moon light, this night whilst
you oscillated each villain of me.

This is the very first winter
since he went and he kissed her,
that I have been free; able to see
each shade of light, this night.

7 billion conspecifics walk
on 7 billion pairs of feet
treading soft earth and waters,
concrete and sands,
causing vibrations through
individual kinetic plans.

All busy heading
ultimately to where all ends meet,
our steps are finite;
our souls are in our feet.

When the grains of your sand
Moved
One by one
Slowly, at first,
Shifting under me
Like it was normal;
It meant nothing.

Until the avalanche came
And a million tiny grains
Grew in velocity
And violence
And suddenly, my very ground,
Had slipped; shifted,
To under the feet of another.

So here now I stand
On this bare; barren ground
Worn smooth by your leaving
Silent in your wake.

I pick up a rock
Hold it in bloodied hands,
And I use it
To forget;
To carve new ground to stand on
But this time I shall not need it,
It shall need me.

you are the echo in places after everyone's sound has gone.

you are the reluctant resonance in air between breaths.

you are the leaving that's overstayed its welcome.

you are the racket in deprivation of company.

you are the uproar after music has ceased.

you are the chord eternally reappearing.

you are reverberations of want, of lack.

you are sweet tinnitus in every hush.

you are every absent reoccurrence.

you are epitomes of entirety.

your gale still lingers.

but you do not.

you do not.

you do.

not.

I've seen pictures of your old girlfriend
on the laptop you let me borrow, I was
snooping, looking for something to accuse
you of. You told me they had all been deleted
(I hadn't asked) you told me everything
was gone.

I've read messages, happy, hinted, flirtatious
coy poetry played between two parts which
haven't been officially scripted.

"It's weird between us now, isn't it?"
berated friendship, bartered love offered
in the gaps which remain unspoken
yet.

He does not speak of her
anymore. I have not asked.

Was it, unsolicited? Or does she tickle
your decadent fancy; you do the honourable
thing now and flirt with her
behind her fiances back.

Each trial has been blond and I fail
at not hating every single golden glinted thief
who stole something before it was even mine
to take.

You rise and I darken; I smile sticking needles
in your misadvised tongue. Still, these words burn
sweeter than those in my head.

Something whispers about that girl
who just walked past. Inside my crypt
things do not look good for me.

I wasn't sure of
those words, that holy
trinity pressed to give back,

until your heart stuttered systolic.

Contracted, you underplayed every line as
I fought, undervalued, omitted and flat-lined

that singular skip your two-******, beated rhythm
warning beacon, red-flashing, blaring signal flared sign

granted every second second of each stolen time, when those
planets and these stars became so fiercely yet finitely aligned,

yes, I understand now, as we lay entwined, cyclic, chest
deep, life-defying leap, gasp of breath, wake from

sleep, it is this that I seek, sunlight unconfined
crushing breath divine, beat of two, separate

singular, unexpected yet still

defined in-kind, of your
continuation bringing
life back to mine.

you said you could hold the sun in your fist
and call nightingales when you were ******
that all the deceptions made it easier to trust
and you could see the stars leaking dust

you pulled out sections of your hair
raked your scalp, saying life was fair
and sank your teeth into my arm
saying it wouldn't cause me any harm

you broke the dish and crowed it fate
sent words forth to muddy the slate
and when I cried and begged for less
you told me I was a reckless mess

you carved up pieces, embraced the floor
told me I should have dreamt of more
I dried my tears and latched the gate
your truth whispered, it's far too late

you were the artist, painting colours on skin
sang words of love, such sweet impeccable sin
and some days I can't find where they end and I begin
despite escaping I still cradle you within.

How dare you cultivate
something with her that
we always dreamed of;

our aim now a parody played out
in your collective garden.

A family, super sweet with
sunshine smiles and Daisies and
birds singing at the dawning
rise of the sun as I wander

through rain clouds and embody
each sunset, anticipating the edge
of night and you

you and her and this pinnacle
that I dreamt up
create our future.

Only I never could have imagined
that it would be
one without me.

You put your trust in me,
crack open caged ribs and slip
flawless hands into flawed breath.

I close the weeping wounds and
smile up, with innocent face false.

Shush, you give me such a gift
I could never drown and admit
this was not what I asked for.

You place ruptured trust in me
but never wonder of space carved,
a waiting cavern, empty, unadorned.

I stroke the hair at the nape of your neck,
your head sleeps steady on my shoulder.

I lay awake and remember -
recall, recollect, render pieces
of another

whose trust riddled woodworm
promises, once undermining the
structural integrity of my mind.

Still, my hand moves, a sure constant, trapped
between pulling you close and
pushing you away.

You are but skin and hair
and taut bone stretched simple
over the expanse of what was once.

We lay you to earth, brothers
smiling on the surface, beneath
fuming currents we carry on.

Carry on
we carry you on
in our heads and furtive glances
at the past, now.

What is this?

This mass of magma, bubbling
between silence and laughter

between
life and death.

I am sandpaper
longing frictions heat.

To grow both fat and
weary, sloughing
away your skin.

See what is strength
suckered and sickly
is set
to diminish.

But paper handholds,
why so dusty?

You aim for ignorance,
blooded hands to tease
simply tremor.

Yes, each whisper
charms so sweetly,

sweetly rough
against your grain.

Under your skin, I will rest, elevated
on ribbed, rigid cages of ribs containing
that one muscle confounding all;
here I will perch and observe

such a beautiful rhythm, concept of
constant contractions as my fingers will to
wrap around the chaos of capillaries, each
vacuous vein and every attesting artery

screaming as I squeeze, nails painted
ebony as rivulets exercise against my sins.
Your body is my rapture, yes every manoeuvre
fascinates these prying eyes, I will prise apart

the seams of your internal markers and search
secrets stashed in genetic poetry, discover
paltry physical proofs, truths of what went so
badly wrong that your mind drowned so readily

that you chose to diminish, turned off all navigation
headed steadfast, sure and glorious towards rocks
everybody warned you about; I must vivisect

this paradox, venture deep within the places you
refuse to look; inside your claustrophobic body
covert are the ***** secrets of sea sickness, of why
you chose to sink in love with me.

You said
"you are so tired" and smiled
the warmth bringing expectation
a need to please

so I made all of the right noises
and you commenced to reduce me
of the burden of my clothes.

eyes closed
body supine,
languid and lying
mouth still.

Was I pure igneous rock
and you sedimentary stone
both undeniably metamorphic,
look, everything's changed.

Hidden layers you obscured
deposited through thousands
of tiny imprints, consequences
of each a tiny blade still felt.

Geologists studied us but
no answers did they provide,
an unhappy cohesion of the
earth and none the better for it.

The pressure you put on my
atoms yielded surprising results,
intrusive company chipped
away at the outer layers.

But I longed for the fire and
you for other marble to which
my quartz could not compare,
friction reducing both to rubble.

You brought blood from a stone
and so I eroded you twice as fast
because it seems these two rocks
cannot make a love that can last.

A missing link
I don't even know what that means
keep your ****** coding
and yes, I burnt down those trees.

You need to, sometimes,
it gives the ground new time to grow,
recycle nutrients and now just breathe
without your suffocating seeds to sow.

So yes, it's terribly blackened
and maybe no-one will ever come back
but after everything that's happened
I'll happily settle for that.