I sit next to Sally and watch the sun set,
here in this life, where I'll always regret,
leaving my home; moving away,
for here is where my heart will stay.

you washed the salt out of my eyes
you stomped your feet, refused goodbyes
you burned my books when I tried to write
and set up traps to catch me in the night

I followed your steps up to the cliff
and tried to recall how it felt to live
before this cage of you that I elated
when this infinity could not be sated

So many steps seen from where I stood
so much bad diminished so much good
and those lies were always easier to tell
before that mention of where he fell

A push that was but kinetic emotion
who cried the tears, formed the ocean?
Your own were dried long before this last
and your steps have penned me in the past.

I trip into your path, machinations
of bright smiles and a kindness drawn
only with pleasing you.

The first time we met I dreamt myself
into your bed, sly moves of a body
you did not want to resist.

Eagerly I hover on the edge of your
life, content to steal company whenever
it is permitted.

He is rapture defined, solid substance
with self-abrasive smiles; a keenness
that cuts when I stand too near.

I wonder if he has other girls to
whom he also extends invites,
to accompany him but for awhile.

I wonder if he likes it. And I wonder
of the dwindling kindled hope that
enrages my skin - and his?

She trips and falls into my path, overeager
with bright smiles and a kindness she tries
to conceal.

The first time we met she fell into
my bed on the pretence of stealing
music and laughter.

Persistent she hovers on the edge of my
life, ready to invade, for a time, whenever
invited.

She has soft skin and hands that are
engulfed by mine; a quiet voice that
falters when shouting.

I wonder if she has other men, who
too extend the right to stay only
for a while.

I wonder if she likes it. And I wonder
of the hesitation that drops
from my skin to hers.

We either fall

or we fly and there's no

no plateau on which to lay

to rest our heavy heads, hurtling

between each inevitable

windburntbloodscreamingcoursing

drop

and every

goddamnbreathbaringasphyxiating

                                                                  elevation.

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.

He is the sun scorching my irises
as I wonder what I ever did to deserve this,
strong saccharine sugar heightening my spine
as the paths of stars and planets finally align.

But sweet dove, what collar now is this?
I thought my eyes were blind to any but his?

That slight smile and how would it feel
to taste that skin, ah this spinning wheel
in my mind, please, stop. Now what trick it this?
He found true love but we overlooked my abyss.

I love him, I do, but that one talk with a stranger
has placed all that we knew in immaculate danger
was it actually my darkness that blinded his irises?
And what has he ever done to deserve this?

No, we are golden and in his arms I will lay
no more thoughts of a stranger, that parody play,
but now sighted eyes most unwillingly perceive
that is it happy, this heart, or is it I that is deceived?

I'm stationary, sat silent in a taxi
on another plagiarised street
where the rain is the only other rhythm
compounding that heavy threat of my heart.

There's one frozen memory
of words that crept unwarranted to
the surface and floated idly there,
an oily mirror amongst the ****.

I said
I can't do this any more.

And wordless, you left me when
actually, I didn't think you could.

This taxi is empty and the rain is
only on my face and that bray
of my heart holds steady,
in spite of everything
else having
stopped.

I remember the day
with the cold water-kissed summer grass sticking to my thighs
and you, eyes solemn, downcast, peeking up through thick lashes.

I was afraid
because the words which tumbled from hesitant, confessing lips
left earth to quake and silence in wake.

Except for my hiccups
undignified explosions; face raw red from crying
salt tracing sorrow
white rivers flowed on soft skin.

I remember that day,
where I stood and walked away
not with much clarity.

As though sight and sound surrendered
said, this is it, the end.

yes, I am here, here is my hand
outstretched and empty and willing for you to
tip your fingers into, let me take the weight
of your soft palm against mine,
please, the night is cold and
I haven't been touched for too long.

I would save you the sunshine and tell you
of the shapes I saw in the clouds
and bring you a piece of every conversation,
the laughs, loves and lyrics of each day
all yours to consume; to cherish and buoy
you through the deepest depths of the dark.

Take it and reach for my hand when it hits,
my bird, I would die for that smile of yours
which caused the sun and the stars to each be lit
and the sea to return to the still sorrowed shores.

There are stones between us, grasping black
jagged deceitful arches of rock which have
stolen my blood and my feelings and my
smiles once too many times. I can look and
see the waves crashing, engulfing what
little humanity you managed to bury and
lose in favour of salty self-pity, stories told
in the drunken tear tracks that mask your
face and your lies and your guilt, because
please do explain to me how you cannot feel
guilty, I get it yeah, alcohol dims your memory
of all the awful things you've said and
done and left open upon your face, slamming glasses
against walls, music screaming at 4am as you stomp
and kick and shout at the TV, at the world,
at my sister and I. And then she grew to
shouting back and never being home and
I? I yearned to bring that bottle down on
your ******* head and glory in the blood
and bone and brains that would cover me and hide
me from every single little ******* thing that you
have ever deigned to commit. Sister, I could reach out
to him now and try to bring him back from the seething
waters, but I would much rather watch him slip and fall
and drown in the glory of his own creation.

One drop
and then another

rolling down dusty cracks in a windowpane;
as transparent as the clouds.

Here they fall, whispering widows
traces as substantial

as the autumn leaves
when the wind whimpers,

as substantial as your smile
when I'm not looking.

The drops simmer on,
down the desert of expression

fall down down down
and I will

make sure to look the other way.

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.

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.

I am sold on this hope of you
the sky has become shady and
rivers torrent, raindrops become
addicts to the scent of your skin.

In your touch, streams of
molten estuaries feed this great
gaping belly of the beast, salty
eddies tempering all wont to be.

To drive head-first within unknown
waters, broken driftwood promises
must be cut free; am I to sink in
the ocean or to swim in your sea?

I do not care if
you do not love me,
for I have stored all the colours and
traced the secrets of your steps.

Your arm around my shoulder
is the first moment of the first sunrise
radiance caressing frozen webs of spider silk,
silver glory emanating golden dew.

I know no other way but
nor do I want for more, only to will
you stay; hang suspended on
backdrops of my blackest night.

So I do not care if
you do not love me;
I treasure that weakness enough
for the both of us.

We oscillate
Each turning in our glass circles,
With fluid walls
letting in and keeping out at will.

Circles then projected, transparent barriers
Impeding revolutions of others
Previously content just to spin.

We pause in our rotation
Watching from afar.

Societies shattered silence
Screams, we will all cut ourselves on the shards.

Contamination seeps and weeps from pores and migrates from your skin to mine
I cannot see it but I feel it, sliding over me and sinking through layers
Through my skin and my nerves and my tissue down right to my bone
Where you pause; take a breath, look around;
Try on my internal machinery for size and speed and duration
Drag and rip and tear my insides for a sign and the very spark of life
Then, once located you break through, right down and into my marrow
And consume all it is there that makes me immune
Become a part of me in the parts that I was not even aware existed
A lovely parasite who feeds on my secrets and bathes in my blood
A darkness within which perfectly mirrors that already present
Both of me and alien, twisting the two so intertwined that no lines can be drawn
Until we are but intermingled and so all is lost in bones that have become yours
All that skin and those nerves and those tissues, lost unto me and gained by you
To be devoured through duplicities of dancing and deception  
A most beautiful way to die, to simply cease to exist to be
Devoured by a love so consuming and false that not a trace will remain
When you do not falter but dance on; playing out your parody of happiness
With all of those who once thought that they too knew the steps

But now what remains at last knows better
And as it burns it both regrets and adores you
It both loves and it hates you
Wanting but denying the need for a being so superfluously mendacious in their meaning
So extensionally versatile with their morals and reduced in magnitude by their ploys
Now the ash can rise above, constrained by no sentiments to bind nor naivety to hope
To fade into comforting insignificance as you compose a ******* of life with bitter strings
Tying irreversible knots in all others connected to your skin; secured by but the very finest of threads
On the edge and ready to leap; always with a larger hand in sight and the treachery to take it.

I had a dream last night that my mother died
And I woke
to a salty pillow and feelings of grief.

Then I remembered that it was you, not her
who had left me.

Andohgod the relief that I felt
has cemented every artery, vein and capillary.
This guilt will crush me to the earth.

It’s just that I had something extraordinary once
and I lost it.
And I can’t even blame anyone else
but myself
because I did not fight for it.
But how can you fight
for something you no longer believe in?


I lost it.
One could even say, I threw it away
it slipped from my fingers
but I did not run to pick it up
I did not scream nor rant nor rave
nor bleed and burn and break
I just
sat.
And watched my world crumble,
passively hastening desolation.

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.

Do not let them in,
sometimes insanity is
all I have of you.

A trickle of freshwater
transparent, streaming down
building until the rampant river rages
frothing ***** underneath this pale skin

I question the worthiness of my water
crashing next to his, his estuaries wander
of new continents and mine falls,
losing weight, losing track, losing direction

to pool, fat and turgid, darkening in the lower light
stagnant waters reeking of incompetence and mud
whilst the estuaries delight in new discoveries and I
lose myself in my reflection.

Do you still think of me?

Do you remember the blaze of my breath
pausing taut once more before yours?

No.

The day you told me, plucked up by a poor mans spine
shucked beneath your skin, I whimpered to behold
treacherous lips, last imprisoned by another.

A dry river of salt flowed static down my skin and you laughed.

Parked a pistol at my temple,
with rough fingers and parched breath frozen, indecision fraught.

But letting go was enough.

Sometimes, you endure resolute in my thoughts
like fingers wrapping again around this throat,
singing sorrow when, stupidly, I look too closely.

I cannot foresee time when thought of you
stops shattering these shards that remain.

And I hope you still think of me,
but what use is that.

I think I must be dead and my body moulders, rests
imperfectly in a carved wooden tomb. Secreted

beneath the malted mud, a restless corpse twitches,
mind set on deceiving; images of alien fingertips
skimming supple skin.

Truly, I have never been more content, as my pieces
decay and dismember and chest rises with bloated gas

breathing such sure imitation against
bleached white weaving whale bones as

the machinations, these movements of worms
whisper, vibrating your words within each unseeing ear,
surely, yes, no heart beats now to hear them.

You love me, say my worthy companions, and oh
do I love you too, most magnificent apparition, sweet
spectacular spectre, conception of minds greatest trick.

I must slumber eternal.
I must lie beneath shaded trees where the birdsong and
shafted sunlight and sweet taste of dewed grass lends

life to decimated, deceased thought of what was once
concious, forcing disbelieving perception, fabricating
a phantom, forging the incredible wonder of you.

I think I must be dead, for I think I drew you up
inside my head.

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.

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.

I'm a ******* psychopath
Chew me up and spit you out
The smoking gun at my fingertips
One taste, one touch
That's all this is.

Getting better, getting nowhere
Steps that twist concave
Round and round the ******* garden
I know how but
I won't behave.

Little whispers, seeing mirrors
The light flashes but no ones home
How many pushes will it take you
To stumble, I'll keep at it
I can hack it
what else is a lunatic to do?

One more secret
slicing soon to retire
the sound that
comes unbidden
I need you
and how I wish I didn't.

I don't know if what I am doing classes as living, classes as

enough; for I am all too aware of time passing; standing

attested, arrested by people purely expanding as all I do,

when held against dream's nostalgic playing field and

childhood's uncertain scope of vision; silver concrete

wonder at the world being round, that this life

now tastes uninspired, anaemic;

excessive only in its own

insignificance,

truly.

I've added up those infringements
stumped them safe, sleeping on dewed grass,
notches burnt on pain of others past to
flare to light in the light of future true.

Goodnight sweet princes, please let
me abandon you soft in this dark
I want to move without your strictures
to seek valleys again crossed with blue.

Numbers lament from my touch but this
I know to be true, it is not my turn to
dance in the ditches, but I would set fire to
dawn to seek sweet signal of your hue.

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.

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.

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.

Yes, you left.

but yet here remain? Innate and insurmountable.

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.

When you laugh at yourself because
your words cause solitary hilarity to ensue and
then shake your head smiling because you are
so **** clever. It's true you think a lot of yourself
but I wonder if sometimes you need to, because no one
else thinks that much. It's strange that I can write these
words about someone who I've shared secrets and a bed
on countless nights, we've walked under the stars and
picked out our favourite constellations and once I used your
house as my own for months on end and used your
company too. I've said words I don't mean because you
said them first and there's no way back from not replying
and I've thought both wonderful things and terrible ones too.
I didn't want to lose you, but now I am not so sure.

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.

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.

You miss me.

But still you throw your words
and I get caught up in a hailstorm of paper
shallow but deep cuts
as we fall or fly towards disillusion.

I see you
standing straight on high; heavy with
all the threat of the curve of the earth
and I

must not blink.

And in the darkness miss
your wondrous eruption inevitable
falling, flying

into something more than here,
something more than now,
something more than we.

The maelstrom circles, patient, waiting,
lurking ever beneath my still water smiles,
ripples never to reach the shore.

As I slip a little closer; cold, I can feel -
oh yes, that blessed razor-sweet breath
burning hot against my tongue, tripping and -

and I can see you're back, burning eyelids
with our tender-stemmed secrets, always
all too ready to explode forth, exhale,

but today you sit there, still here, always -
maybe, perhaps, incessantly, please

I do not want forever, yet I pray,
stay, stay sweet, just for now
we could be nice.

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.

I remember the solid feel of your arms
and soft, papyrus skin pressed
against mine; encompassing all that
has and will happen.

Here in our circle, I turn
and slip and slide and slither
out, away and onto something new,
whilst your arms always remain open.

Forging young paths with new steps
splashing not lightly, causing tsunamis
with every decision made and regretted,
life lived and loved apart from you.

But there's a link inscripted in our DNA,
genes linking genes and laughter
across seas and silences and solitude
always, you stick with me.

Your eyes braced, lips ready to smile,
upright you keep your chin.
I think of you and pray one day
to be half the person you've been.

Insatiable bile rises at the precipice of ecstasy, undeniably
life lived is a rolling wave of emotion as I rise and I

fall with the sequences of the sun at my back and
these oceans under my feet. One day may I strike a

balance? To arise and not to plunge from these summits,
simply then to collide with the challenger deep. For now

torn moments do sustain me and drain me; I cannot
win against water whilst water cannot last against light.

I see a picture of you and it
punches me in the chest, eyes
of night black darkness bleeding
at the corners but your

smile now means nothing; it is directed
to me no longer. Arms so soft and brown
caress a skin other
than mine and you turn

to thinking of her, always. I sit and stare
embroiled in memories
as the print of your hand runs
around and around my head,

the words you once meant that I can
never bring myself to
throw away. The lament of lapsed lovers
sings low and persistent.

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.

There is a chamber within my body
Beating, beating, forever beating
Until I am gone and then it is silent
For we are but one

Though at times it does not feel it
And, at times, I wish to rip it out
Drag it from broken skin
We are still together, forever

Until one of us falters
And then we both go under.

I walk home alone in the darkness,
winds whipping skin and the trees
singing salty that song of the sea.

You taste is tripping on my tongue,
your marks paint my body and your
words trample every fletched thought.

I walk home alone in the crashing tides,
******* dances, unwilling, as seconds
slip into that final oblivion whilst I take steps

away, away from you I sail but your
voice is my compass, your eyes both beacons
sent to set me sweetly towards your shore.

Your kindness has killed me.

It wasn't too sweet, not saccharine,
you came with a hint of lemon-sharp smiles
and mischievous eyes, cheek slipping off your tongue
to fall on my skin like a bluntly barbed-caress,
each laugh a knife that cuts me to remember.
I barely knew you but even so, I think it was enough
to slip into loving him who I perceived you to be.