I have walked through fire
to reach you

and the blisters on my feet
are love bites

from a distant love

I walked with you,

feet stomping through muddy ground
stepping over fallen branches
that we forged into shapes

out of the bluebells
I heard your voice say

this is a moment
treasure it

I loved you before
we kissed

before I saw the way that
moonlight sat on your
soft features

I wanted you before
you held me in your arms

before our legs entwined
making a sculpture that
would stand the test
of time

I think I loved you
before I ever learnt
to love myself

you were the first person
to show me kindness
and I took my fix of it
just like any drug

I think I loved you
before we were even born

I loved you
when my heart
was barely able
to beat

out any rhythm
the resembled
life

I loved you
running wild like
the moon sitting in
a black ink sky

I don’t like to make
a spectacle of
my passions

but I loved you
open to the world
honesty and truth
the cornerstones of us

our whispered secrets
at midnight, entwined
together as each found
a home in the other

and you betrayed them

loving another as
I loved you

is it the fall we crave
when we think of love?

to slip beneath the salty waters
of the ocean, breathing out bubbles

that contain that one word -

love

it is light on the tongue
and yet to speak it

carries such weight

in those four simple letters
you are opening your heart

to another

hoping that they will act like magnets
and stick together, forever

love is a simple word
and to fall into it
is a freedom

perhaps the greatest
freedom we have
left

I was a fool for thinking
I could keep you unharmed

as if I had the power to heal
wounds of the heart -

etched as deeply as
names on a grave

pretending I could erase sorrow
as if I were the tide upon the sand

I was too proud to admit to you
that to love me was no different
than loving any other girl

I come with my own hazard warning

nights where you’ll wake up in
a cold sweat,
lying next to the nightmare you just had

but if you’re ready
I will hold you hand, earnestly
and help you navigate the
messed up map of me

this ****** up map of love

With my hand on the telephone
I wait anxiously to hear your
voice again, a voice that
licks my ears like honey,
memories come back
vividly, flooding me with
longing, I used to be
better than this,
better than waiting
like a child for
Christmas, up at the
crack of dawn, awake
all night listening
for sleigh bells,
but you have made me
wild, one of a hundred
sad women living with
their eyes and heart,
sleepwalking, left with nothing
but a longing for a voice
on the telephone
to tell me I'm beautiful
and "please wait
for me" and I know
I would wait endlessly
for you, desperately,
as if you were a cup
of water at the end
of a a hot summer's day,
I am weak and wounded
foolishly hoping you will
heal me. Is this how I die?
waiting with my hand
on the telephone