We picked feathers
off the ground and
saved them, hoping we
would eventually collect
enough to fly

when the frost came
and covered the streets in
white dew, we wound count
out how many we had

but it was as if we were
always in debt to the birds
who’d lost them, plucking out
the one thing that gave them
a freedom that we would
never know

We were strangers drifting
on a sea of chance

meetings in smoky clubs
hands slipped together like silk

stained coffee cups and sugar lumps
in my throat

and then the waves crashed
against our promises

of a future that was a double dare
to promise

You bleed the black ink that flows
from my
pen

but if I am to write a love song
I shall sing to you as you fall asleep

or a shattered heart letter that
I shall burn and never send

I
Don’t
Know
Anymore

Your hands hold
more than the weight
of the world

more even than the
weight of my heart

every love song ever
written hums between
your fingers

their chords, honey drenched
braids that wrap and tie around
your wrists

shackling you to every note
of passion, every outpouring of
devotion that has ever
been sung

that is more than my heart
can hold

but your hands…
your hands are strong enough to hold
the promised tune of forever

I’m scared
to feel more
than your
love

so even when
it’s over

I cling to
the veins and arteries
of my broken
heart

like lifelines

hoping they will
save me from
drowning

I watch a pebble make ripples in the water, before it sinks, and it’s painful to know
that at times, I have also wanted to drown

surrounded by the rippling conscious of my life
my past exploding and corroding

I do not want to drown every day,
some days I see the beauty of the lake
its shimmering blue surface, the rugged rocks wrapping around its body

but some days…

some days the past is like a knife of flames plunged into my heart,
and only the deepest depths of water
will extinguish it

I sit on a beach
on a freezing December night,
the sun has gone down
pinks and purples and golds,
the waves are vicious
I pray that they consume me
to wrap their foam around my waist
and pull me under -
I run my fingers through golden sand
as silky as your hair, and I am transported
back to that last night together,
the hatred in your eyes when
you told me to leave, burns in my memory
every time I close my eyes,
and I didn’t question or argue
I didn’t plead or beg,
because I have known from an age
where I should simply have been
playing with dolls,
that I am difficult
that I am different
that I ultimately
impossible to love