fierce fingers

trace a line from my spine
to my heart

where you sit
like a stranger

unknown to my kiss

and those fingers weave
a web of lies

to tempt you to forget me
without forgetting

or else cast a spell
to make you fall in love

without falling in love
(with me)

a rib cage is a prison for the heart

it’s intentions of protection
are misguided

caged - like its name - away
from the touch of a human hand,
cold and separated from warmth

so, as with any lonely thing -  
it turns pale, grey, and withers away

until there is nothing left to protect
in the first place

I took your hair
and brushed it into a long plait

thick, strawberry blonde curls
tamed, for a moment

until gravity made them fall
back into my hand, again

I asked you to paint thick black lines
under your eyes

framing a brilliant, deep ocean
of youth

I was painfully aware that my own
were natural

framing a tired, green lake
of misery

I did this

hoping that you wouldn’t realise
I was trying to turn back the clock

by turning you into a shadow of a girl
I met when I was seventeen

and thought I loved,
thought I loved,

until my heart got crushed...

sit

as I drink red wine
from a dusted bottle

stay

as I trace our initials in the sand
with a gnarled brach of an oak tree

taste

the oysters they harvested
in this cool, winter month

(it is November,
so it is safe to eat them...)  

and take me

from the white tipped waves,
down to the black oblivion
of the ocean floor

your Egyptian sheets,
a sail for a ship
that never got to see
a new sunrise

These scars have secrets

that threaten to bleed over

everything that you hold dear

in order to get you to hear

(me)

she walked with dandelion dust
on her shoes

knowing the cost of everything
and the price of

nothing

she was told once,
that they were weeds

that they should be killed off
to allow the grass to grow

but she knew that nothing would grow from death’s kiss

(yes, she knew that, at least...)

My eyes grow heavy as Osmium

as I carry the weight of your words

behind them