You came again on a weekday,
my oldest friend,
and whispered poison talk into my ear,
asked me to embrace you,
but I could not see you in the darkness,
because darkness you were

I thought I had killed you,
in the smallest rooms in the brightest clinics,
then buried you in a book I gave away to another

But your ghost would appear to me,
a malign presence,
that left scars on my arms and bruises on my shins

You poltergeist!
I wish I could be rid of you,
for you mean less to me than God,
who abandoned me when I still wore knee socks

I want not to hear your voice,
your venomous chanting
I will not pray to you
Your very name makes me shudder

Yet when we are alone, you ****** me
And when we are with others, you ******* me
to the worst of all men

You are a little god,
who perches inside my ribcage,
waiting until my brain comes down,
off all its non-prescriptions

And then you're here,
living in my head,
filling me with that emptiness,
I can't help but love to hate

I kissed you first at seventeen
and we continued to kiss for weeks,
even though your kisses always hurt.

I'm immune to you now

You were the only constant in my life,
When everyone else left me, you'd appear
to take me into the folds of your arms,
To make me believe you were the only thing keeping me alive
But your plan was to **** me all along

I had jealous lovers,
Who were harder, tougher and
who copulated with many in Vesey Park

They tried in vain to tempt me
But you were all I needed

I craved you always,
Saw you first every Saturday night
Then drowned myself to keep you
On those days when the rain never stopped

You were always there for me
Always always there

I knew you once before,
had passed you specky, lanky, characterless
in dusty corridors, retiring into C rooms

Now what are you, years older,
eyes uncomparable to clichés

What were we?
Invisible, 'part of the woodwork', the damp and must and old worlds

Why was it then you hadn't been of note to me,
of nothing to me

Perhaps you were not pin-marked,
bearing dead inks,
Perhaps your eyes could not sparkle behind thick lenses

I know now I fall in love with drug casualties, or wannabes,
who live their days as nights,
and set their lungs alight

Forgive me for all I say, all I believe,
all my vapid perceptions of boys like you,
being the Ginsbergs and Kerouacs of this world

Failing, always failing

And I'm empty still,
till I find,
boys like you made of easy exits,
and open doorways

I am not winning by having shallow feeling,
I am losing years from empty lust,
when brown eyed boys come profess love,
that is full,
and overbearing

Tell me,
will I ever be yours?

FIN

When we meet, it is always for the first time,
A vague familiarity sweeps us, a dumbing of vocal chords,
As we struggle to find meaning in our chosen words

Do we use each other as apostrophes?
Are we consensual in our decision to never tune into the other's
words, feelings, actions?

Are we lonely, surrounded by familiar passing faces
but none we really long to see

We are both searching for something to make us feel better,
Does that take the form of another human being?
Of each other...

Or will those drunken nights spent semi-conscious suffice
to replace the warmth of each other's hands intertwined?

Do we really exist on the same orbit?
I am Venus and you are Pluto and I am afraid of falling into space,
Into the abyss,
Into your eyes

I may never know what lies beyond them

Some have said I lead boys on, but I feel we lead each other
through minefields,
Both of us end up adrift between safety
and a horrible death of our happiness.

My home was a womb,
warm and safe
All noise muffled
by my own content at just being.

Mother, father
gave me strength
through food, shelter
Some empty words that sounded like
'I love you's
that faded like
the paint on the walls

And only appeared as goodbyes.

What happened to safety?
Who needs the cosiness and warmth of the womb
when hot climates invite us through flat screen TV's

Mother, father,
why are you leaving
and taking my safety with you?
And my two loves, my fur friends
Always there.

More than you have been
during my new life

How can you be so insensitive to the tears
that flow from my sister's eyes?
As you take her womb and give it to another

Inside, I suffer as
my old life disappears with the laughter
and camaraderie
to soon be replaced
by legal documents
and one question...

Why?

We came,
like young infants
stumbling head-long into hedonistic existence
Feeling air beneath our feet in the ****-smelling rooms,
hiding behind cushions and blankets and exchanging knowing looks
on starry nights.

We ran,
down green hills on hot, sunny days
and burned our hands on shed roofs
and the ends of rolled cigarettes.

We drank,
berry cider in the dark,
dancing drunkenly outside bars,
sharing secrets behind closed doors
and open whiskey bottles.

We needed,
no one but each other
and each other's mothers -
Some opening their arms to us
to swaddle us like newborns,
Others dismissing us with a wave of a hand

We spent,
the last year of our school lives
immersed in each other,
some more than others.

We cried,
like shell-shocked soldiers
behind locked bedroom doors
and into smashed-up mobile phones.

We returned,
to those dark evenings,
to drink ***** on hilltops and smoke endlessly,
laughing at everything ******.

We were glowing stars.

We loved,
and those immature jokes hit our shields
and not our bones.

And now our lives have changed
and all those heady evenings spent
hiding beer from Bulgarians
are behind us all.

We are alone,
in this world.
Some moreso than others,
But we are alive.

We are still us.

shes the angel with the bowed legs, eyes lined like pages we rip from our notebooks, small hands cupping wine glasses. she was death. she was his.

he held her hands like stones to skid across water, he took her body like the butcher’s best cut to feed to the dogs. her body bares no scars but her soul is grazed. the word ‘****’ cuts through her; flashing, a glowing neon sign in a dark street. if only there had been others to save her on that street.

i saw him, dressed in brown, his jeans too long and his hair too short. he asked me what i write.

i told him about angels with bowed legs.

i told him about girls who’ve been broken by men.

i never told him about the girl he *****

as the conversation changed to plans for summer; drunken nights and hazy days and pretending to be in love with girls who’s names no one remembers.