I walk
this Earth
like a ghost
hand in hand
with shadows
and spectres
the yellow seas
eaten by industry
are the solution
to my thirst
the apples of
Thalidomide trees
the only answer
to my hollowed
belly hunger
I dare not stray
from the
undercity
of drug
stors and
disease
It is my home, now
as much as
anywhere is
I fester like
a great root,
planted, anchored, growing
from the dirt
of misery

My heart has fallen
open in your hands,

red and swollen
it beats

consumed with desire
and lust

the capacity to
swallow oceans

and skies
words scattered

in a handful
of stars

to lead me back
to you

The universe is vast and gray and infinite,
how do I take my place
in it?

how do I stand,
with my heart beating out
the rhythm of my life,
singing my past in
a simplicity so un -
becoming of it

I want to shout into the void -
I have come, I am woman,
flesh and bone, scars and stories,
I have known a taste of your
treachery and still
I stand before you

I  am Godless,
I shattered brick and mortar
metal and bars,
to be free of the weight
of heaven on my heart

oh universe, I am standing here,
at your open mouth,
a mouse in front of a lion

please acknowledge me

I have come this far,
across the hills of my hometown.
I took my boots off thirty miles ago
and have been roaming barefoot
like a feral thing.
In the distance I saw you, sitting on the porch,
as I grew closer I saw you were smoking
French cigarettes and listening to Cohen.
You stood up to meet me and
before you could speak,
before you could kiss me...

I have never had much luck with men
no, I do not **** the way they like it
my hair is ***** blonde, almost brown
my stomach is round

I do not want your love out of pity, or curiosity
but I love you enough to stop wandering
to wave away the mountains
to drain out the oceans

I will mould myself into the shape of you
so that when we're apart there is an
impression of the other on our flesh

I'll learn to ****, learn to love to ****
bruised memories will heal when your
sweat drenched hand slides down my glistening back

I will love you to your burnt orange core

I am more than my fears, he says

but he does not know
what lurks the the recesses
of my mind,

the demons that no other
has dared to dance with,
the monsters that no other
has wanted to tame,

I am bone shivering
cold, midnight darkness
without stars,

open skies that overwhelm
without landmarks,
with no point of reference
between what was and what
might be,

how do I grow from this pile
of ashes,
that I spent years wishing
someone would scatter
across the sea

I am more than my fears, perhaps
it is a leap of faith

but I dare not jump
(arms outstretched)
into the unknown

I dare not
I dare not

I
dare
not

Our names burn in the sky,
each tiny act of love crafted
into stars

constellations that paint
maps for travellers
to follow

our hearts a guide
for wanderers

I loved you as the first cigarette
burnt down between your
fingers

flicking ashes without
caring where they fell

lust consumed me like the sun
will one day swallow us
all

and now we are wild
fire, raging across
the night

I live
inside these bones
a memory that rises
and grows in the vast
cavity of my chest

my heart ripped
our, now clenched
in the jaws
of a ravenous
wolf

it’s teeth tasting
blood, my blood,
as if it’s ageless
as if it has the
power to sustain
anything except

myself