Your hands
are a cage
that tame
a restless
heart

his
unseen
hands
unlock bars
and unleash
a wild thing

I am a
bird in
flight
now

set free

the skies
are mine
to taste

the oceans
mine to
drink

I am man -
less

and blossoming

without
constraints
of love

You were a magpie

you stole the root of me
bare bones and arteries
and now I am

a shell
stood shaking
in my skin

forever

You sing songs from the dead sea,
echoes of long forgotten love
that burst like starlight,
scattered across a black sky,

I press your heart against my lips,
taste it’s bitter root of anger,
a spark of light that hit a shard
of glass, in the reckless summer heat

we are faithless, you and me,
yet still we believe in each other

Buildings have a language,
bricks laid with weathered hands
that once bake bread in their
Grandmother's kitchen, new face
wrinkled with kindness and
years,

the stones have stories
of wars, battles fought with
swords, blood blooming from
chests like flowers that have
been tendered with careful
green fingers,

walls rattle with memories.
whispers of forgotten love
that raged like wildfire for
a year, then died like summer
when autumn came and swept
away it's leaves in a red carpet
of indifference,

we cannot simply tear them down,
these bricks, these stones, these walls,
turn them into dust and blow them
into the sky, for then to catch on clouds
before scattering like ashes into the ether

we must love them, keep them,
treasure each crack, each nook
and cranny,

as if our lives, too, are
the very foundations
of castles

or the simplest
wishing well

Even the stars
shake when I
speak your name,
a woman bursting
her heart,
red and raw,
arteries like arms
wrapping around
a wound, a bloom
of tulips
in my chest,
a cavity of
dirt, a wisp of
seaweed stretching
a lonely hand
into the ocean,
begging a wave
to answer

Your breath is weak
on the back of my neck
as we pretend to sleep,

my heart is heavy,
sinking, as I know
I shall be leaving
soon,

as the moonlight
fades and the tiny
specks of starlight
disappear,

we are two broken
hearts that could
not heal each other

we were always tethering
on the edge of love,
lust melting like honey
on warm bread,

don't you feel it
darling? the dull ache
of loneliness that hums
between us like
electricity,

there was a spark, once
as I looked into your eyes
and felt like I was home,

but now we are ghosts,
hollow, without substance,
empty spaces where there
should be

everything
we've ever said,
ever done,
ever tasted,

the memory of
your lips,
your mouth,
the shape
of ecstasy

and now, my love
the come down

harsh, a stripped fluorescent
light, skeletons shaking,
bonds and bones rattling,
the fossils of a
prehistoric romance

buried in the earth,
forgotten, left to be
discovered one day,

but not today.

I can't drink or smoke
when you leave

I leave the windows open
tempting a breeze
to bring in the scent
of flowers and summer
rain

They remind me
of you

the way that rain
falls onto a flower
and drips, drips
down into the
soil

the yellows
and oranges of
the petals
burn

our faces reflect
in the dirt and I know
that we'll never be
clean again