They say that death isn't a disease,
that you can't spread it
like a virus
from mouth to mouth
or in a blown kiss

but each time I touch your skin
I hear my heart in my head
blood pulsing, lightly at first
But fiercer the longer my fingers
lick the shell of you
like flames

I look into your eyes, sometimes
despite myself
and see the burst blood vessels
spread out like a drop of paint
in a puddle

I know that our hearts
are about to give up on us
and that it will be
no lightning bolt
of passion
of bursting love
of feeling too much

they will just die
like a story dies
when there is no-one left
to listen to it

I can't help but think
of the life we
could have had
if we'd waited

instead of clinging madly
onto each other
desperate to shake off
the fever of the last ones
we'd touched

I lost her on my way to
Lightness

A shaking shadow that could not take form
Without me

Holding my hair back, stroking
The stretch marks we made together

The only tangible memory

The white blankets
Over the mirrors

The locks on the fridge

To keep our hearts
From filling up

To be emptied
Like a trash can

Once a week

The cuts on my knuckles
Will fade

Skin will grow back like plants
That skip a summer

The catch in my throat that is the
Air between our bodies

The gaps between our thigh
Bones

Cigarettes leave their traces of
Yellow stamps on my fingers

And I smoked so many with you

We're drinking tea
from chipped mugs
again, like we do
every morning

dropping sugar
grain by grain
until the sweetness
settles on the top
like a second
skin

we wake up before the alarm sounds
first a minute to ****
and then two

as we sleep
closer night after night
our legs wrapped up
like a song
lyric

I wispered Eliot into your ears, you would leave it
on Post It notes on
the fridge

we don't have photographs there
our love is not
visual

it is in touch
of breath against
neck at midnight

the tightening grip
of strong arms
around as I shake through another bad night

we know how we taste
and smell

the strawberry shampoo
that makes you want
to wrap my hair
around your tongue

I fit into you like
a fossa

our fingers resting
on the ucho
of our tea cups

In your eyes
I see a thousand
sunsets, oranges
and reds that
melt like honey,
on hot bread,

in your eyes
I see a thousand
ways to say
goodbye

Please remember me
in this moment

as we gaze into
each other's eyes

whole solar systems
collapsing

in milli -
seconds

of doubt

a sweetness that
lingers on the lips

like sugar, that turns
to paste upon

the tongue when it
meets the moistness

of your mouth

I am not your
lullaby

nor your temptation
taken out of

time

I am just a girl
you loved once

not for a lifetime
nor an infinity

but just

in this moment

I used to think mysef
a Romany

reading palms
and wearing golden
bangles

layers of purples
pinks and reds

adorning my body

but your love
turned me into
nothing but

a Tinker

stealing purses
from unsuspecting
well dressed women

and pocket watches
from pinstriped suited
men

I never said I was
guiltless

but your love
made me nothing
but ashes in

the fire pit of
Hell

What about the moon -
waxing under God's gaze
turning the arc of the tide
into a smile or a
crash of anger

I do not pretend
to know it's secrets,
painted in the sky,

only to be seen
at the fall
of night

We used to climb through
the broken fence and
visit the ancient
Ash tree that
stood, splendid
and solidatary

we would wrap our arms
around it, our fingers
far from touching

in our minds we would
disect the trunk and
count the rings, ageless
it was, beyond
number

we would sit
beneath it’s branches,
that reached out like
arms, hands desperate
to be held

it’s leaves would fall
in autumn, we would kick
their red and orange
offerings, disrespectful
as to where they
had come from

I still go to to it,
sometimes, I still
listen for it’s song

but it is dead
and quiet

without her

Our names are burnt
into the stars
like secrets
waiting to explode

I believed you every time
like a child might believe that they're safe

(untouchable)

as long as their parents are
in sight

But I am no longer a child

(because of you)

and I should have learnt by now
that I can't stem the tide's consumption
of everything we've built

(our glass grain castle)

with a memory of a kinder time
and a polaroid

Like so many that fall here
I am hollow

The tendons of my neck
the open grave of sunken
skin and bone

Telling to story that language can't

It was like a spell,
a wild moment of black magic,
arithmetic bliss

hunger the only antidote
to the poison I swallowed

a childhood stolen
and replaced with a
decade cracking ciphers

years fell against me
like electrocuted trees

people hear the crash
and turn to look
at first, but soon
navigate their way
around the wooden
corpse

my twig-ed fingers
creeping out from
underneath, black earth
and ***** nails, a dead
thing crawling to reach
a last lungful of
dusty air

I hated him for denying me
a fight

leaving in the morning
like a dream

through the slightly open window
and rippling curtains

There is a comfort in shouting
words bouncing off the walls
like bullets

I wanted to give him
an exit wound

but I turned over to find
an empty pillow

We were two kids
kicking bricks
as our legs
hit the wall

I never thought we'd
grow up

we were Peter Pan
and Tinkerbell

dressed in greens
of different shades

dressing up
meant nothing
back then

becoming someone else
was easy

now we no longer fight
over who gets to
pick first

from the wooden chest
of characters in the attic
of my Mum's house

(with the big yellow
kitchen that smiled
like the face of a
'well done' sticker)

we only kiss when
the kids are
watching

a peck on the cheek
that hurts as much
as the time I
broke my arm
with you

I like to think
that it's you that's
grown out of
loving me

(the way that you
grew out of your
shoes between
school terms)

but that's
too kind

His fingers were too long,
patched with nicotine stains
and traces of my DNA

I gave him that small
part if myself, a tiny scrap
of evidence he could keep

He knew that I'd send
no-one looking for it

I knew he'd want to
remember me

He knew I'd have
no choice

He left bits of himself
in my hair

drandruff flecks

On the hip of my jeans
there are snowflakes

Droplets of ice
that have frozen
and expanded over
time

They've spread like
the thread of a silkworm

Tying me to the night
we met

You liked
    to run your fingers
            through my hair,
                twisting each strand into a smile

You liked
    to trace your fingers
            over my scars,
                fluttering, tapping out the rhythm of your thirst

You liked
    to run your fingers
            down my back,
                marking each bone with a kiss

Claiming the territory
                            
you know own

After she died,

I would sit in the kitchen
For hours

Kneading bread
Into the bones
Of her

I thought she wasn't
Looking

Or couldn't see

But a part of me
Felt sure
She could still
Smell

The air
Sweet with
Honey

And
Rise
Again

Like flour

Through a fog of sleep
I feel you

turn your head
towards me in your
sleep

arms reaching through
the blankets

I am living,
bones brittle,
waterfalls of hair
soaking the pillows

dying for those quiet
moments in the dark
when I know you're
watching me

the moments when
I exist, like a shadow
eating sunlight, in your
eyes

Your lips taste
of gin, the feel of
chipped teacups
and taste of
broken biscuits

but you are not
that seventy-something
really, despite the
paper-like skin that shows
the blue train tracks
feeding your heart

I am hoping that it
cracks, like a
chemical burn,
I want to hear
the skin splitting,
spitting out the
lemon juice of
your jeers

your eyes are
my mirror, black
and loveless

stinging, still
with lemon
pips

(I)

They called us
unremarkable

but I knew you would always
find me

a voice that pushed
through the darkness

with a thunderous roar
if I needed it

or in a whisper lighter
than air

(II)

They said that the sharing of graves
was archaic

like a hand still clasping  
a pocket watch

but we had our names down
for a plot

regardless

(III)

We'd been writing epitaphs with pencils
until they let us use pens

on plastic chairs that creaked
with the slightest touch

hands hidden inside black sweaters
legs like shaking magnets

desperately defying

science

(IV)

In this child's theater
we sat watching

attendance assemblies
and merits

being handed out by shapes
we'll forget when we're

twenty

(V)

Now we're older we get Shakespeare
and musicals

the noise is louder now
and easier to crawl under

we pretend to understand
the complexities of the words

to take meaning from
soliloquies  

that feelings are more
than just a hand on a heart

(VI)

Instead we rise
from our seats

red plush velvet that
smells of forgotten stories

believing more than ever
in that childish love

from years ago

This carpet is
alive

a thousand ants
scuttling
scratching
the back of
my neck

I know your tongue
is blue before it is
inside me

Cheap alchopops
topping up glasses
of cheaper *****

You don't smoke
anymore but
I am still passively

Choking in the fumes
that trigger off
those pleasure
receptors in
your brain

Is this why
you're doing
it?

Is it just
a greater
pleasure?

I am thankful
for the adults
water you gave me

Liquid lullabies
that buzz gently
in my brain

Whilst you strip

The days blend together
in the way that coffee
blends with milk, and tea
with sugar

licking the spoon
clean, white spots
that blister
in your mouth

books stand around
like lay figures

two weeks overdue
and full of dead
things, creatures
that have nestled
between the leaves

insects
that have bitten
the dust

the pages are stiff
to turn, starched
spines that creak
beneath fingers

the days blend together
and I sit, drinking tea
between the cracks
and falling into words
I'll never read

Two cups of coffee
- unsweetened - untouched
sit on the table, smiling,
between us

chair legs creaking
like old bones
as we pull away
from each other

hands crossed
cracked from washing
with bleach at midnight,
breaks in the middle of
meetings and meals

the table is glass
and when the light
hits it we have no
choice but to look
at each others
eyes

desperate, passive,
almost dead

I can see the words
sticking in his throat
but I'm not going
to help him set
them free

he can ask
me

Is it over
now?

Imagine,
old bones

fed with milk
and memories

breaking

turning
into
dust

scattering
like ashes

falling like
the petals
pulled off
a flower
in Spring

I know that
I will be him

with songs
playing on
the canvas
Of my skull

counting down
days like
pennies

the worthless copper
in their pockets

the tips that
no-one would
take

It was the lifeline
you offered,
that the idiot
in me cling to,
despite myself,

like a drowning
man clings
to a rope,

thrown out
in the hope
of saving
a life,

only the lips
of my heart
closed around
it like a mouth,

shoved it down
deep, like a shot
of whiskey downed
at midnight,

your alcohol
stained breathe
soft against my
neck,

but I am not
drowning, no,
I am treading
water, always,

I will be treading
water until another
comes along,

with harsh hands
and cruel words,

you see the ribs
around my heart
were built to shatter,

and you are too
kind to break
my bones

at one point
I couldn’t walk
five metres from
a car to a
hospital door -
way

starved for weeks
until hunger didn’t hurt,
until the numbers
blurred

at one point
I drank *****
out in the street,
drenched in rain

restrained by
two emergency
department security
guards who did not
understand why

I was smashing my
wrist into the
floor

at one point
I drank a pint
of water and made
myself sick

over and
over

rinse
repeat

I tried to die
afraid to live
scared of the
men who lurked
like spectres in
my dreams

they are the
cause of my
pain, of the
letters after
my name

a badge of
insanity

at one point
I hope to want
to live

Your goodbye
is an ocean

over bones,
the waves wash
leaving
salt stars

the more I drink,
the more my thirst
increases

growing, like
coral, away from
the seabed

I’d paint my face
with the smiles
I stole from
playgrounds
if you looked
closely, you would
see my knees
bruised and bloodied
from falling off the
swings, swinging
into the air like
a fearless bird
but I have no
wings
and fall
like hail
from the sky
onto the
asphalt

She comes
into my room
like fire

a flame
thrown
into the
path of
a nightmare

like the
sun reflected
in the eyes
of water

shaking
walls

black sheets
burning

the smell
of stray
hairs that
have abanded
me

during the
night

When your hand
shook in mind
hope hit my heart like
a gun shot

my mind flickered
like the street lamps
falling, like stars
into the night

I moved here for
anonymity, a peck of
dust, they promised,
where to look too long
at anyone, is to look
too long at
yourself

There is air to breathe, now
with daylight
creeping through
yellowed glass

Wandering amongst Oyster card
holders and paper faces, they aren’t
beautiful at all, but when was
life?

You look after
my heart, he said
on fearful, fitful
nights, spent waiting,
gazing between
bars of light

Your eleventh girl that day,
caught out of the corner of your eye,
a fully stocked bar, a familiar face,
you came in here on the hunt
for the innocent fox

(drink up, shut your eyes
breathe, don't forget to
dream)

a rolled joint, turn the radio up,
shut the windows, lock the door,
you're doing nothing wrong, after all

(lie down, count to ten
you're free to leave, in your mind
imagine so many things, anything
but what's really happening)

cover your tracks, throw out the blood
soaked sheets. tell yourself she asked
for it, tell yourself it's just *****
laundry, just the taint of
another girl

(run, through the pain,
it'll stop stinging soon,
just keep moving, move
get away, get away, let the air
wash off his scent)

purple... green... a two inch scar,
please stop asking me to describe him,
swallow hard, he's not inside you now,
you're free to breathe, it's over,

but in my mind

the pictures still play,
like a movie scene,
a scratch on a track,

he's the other side of this screen,
I can taste him, salt and sweat,
they see what I saw at first
a decent man, not an animal
who devours women as if
they're meat

tell them I'm crazy
tell them I was drunk
get some sick satisfaction
out of lying through your
barely concealed wolf grin

you're free to prowl again

Kiss me on the inside;

can you feel my heart
shake? Do your fingertips
read me like a Carpenter’s
reads wood?

could you re-build my life
in your shed? Re-paint
the years that have
chipped away at my
skin

do you have tools
that can mend souls?
souls that have escaped,
eloped with promises
telling you to hold
tight and wait

Wait.

You didn’t fix
the clock, did you?
The hands still
move too fast

instead of the beginning,
middle and end
you told my story
in a flick book

My childhood is
a paragraph, I was
young for a page

your hands are
hard but your heart
is harder

unflinching,
throwing out
the parts of me
you can’t fit

In

To

You

I forgive you,
of course, when
you show me the
sculpture you made
out of our tomorrow's

the wood has
beeb sanded down,
the edges, smoothed
as you place your arms
around my waist
and lift my face, slightly
to the sky

and there,
where the stars meet,
there is where
our hearts beat

burning out the parts of me
that don’t fit

In

To

You

The sun has set
and left me here

bones stretching out
towards the heart
of the heat

as my spine cracks
across the sand

I press my lips
together and
taste

the salt on
the air

the black mist on
the sea

the promise on the
wind that reassured me

that you’d come back
to me

In the evening
the house is
buzzing

with bees that
sting and

we eat their
honey as our blood
sugar drops

with the temperature

you squeezed my
hand and thought
that we connected

but the sound
of your voice
is more of an
echo than a
hum

and the darkness
in your eyes
frightens me

we've met before,
you say,

we used to swap
our hearts beneath
red sheets

but your
face is not one that
I see when I
close my eyes

your grip on me
is not one that
comforts me

and the darkness
in your eyes

(that frightens me)

just makes me think
of a man I met once
blind drunk on a
Wednesday afternoon

and the hold he had
of my arm
when I tried to turn
away

She is eight
standing on the top step
staring at the stars
twinkling with the promise
of a new year

eyes now closed,
she drinks them in
lets the ***** of fire
warm her, the heat
of the flames burn
into her heart

in her head
a voice whispers
'make a wish'

without moving her lips
she swallows the
freezing darkness,
the air

M
A
K
E

M
E

T
H
I
N

she expels
the letters
like smoke
rings

let my hands
shake and bend
like dead twigs
in the breeze

my eyes to
retreat back
to safety

into secrets

my chest to shake
like a spider
undet a glass
trapped but safe
contained

'Please eat away this flesh'

She is eighteen now
and the years have changed her

yet not tamed the whisper
that beats like sea water
crashing into the rocks
that guard her thoughts

sitting rigid
on a hard red sofa
trying to keep her eyes dry

she watches the screen
that stands between her
and the rest of
the world

the only stars tonight
are the ones bouncing
off the glass

there is no air in here
with the three of us
eating the only thing
we still can

Christmas decorations
still standing and
watching, catching
the dust that's like
the splatter of cereal
over a breakfast bowl

we are supposed to be
in bed by eleven
with someone coming in,
a dark shadow, checking
that the windows are shut

but tonight
we are allowed to pretend
that we are part of this
world, beyond the television
screen, that still dances
and kisses strangers at
midnight

allowed to pretend that
the chimes of Big Ben
stir our hopes
that the explosions of
coloured flashes
scatter away our fears

in her head
a voice whispers
'make a wish'

without moving her lips
she sighs, fatness for
freedom or a prison
sentence of bones

that wished in herself
all those years
ago

Once again
the sound of magpies
hunting fill my head with
images of daylight

and picnics we took
under ash trees
on top of itchy
blankets

I know you only read
those books for me

to make me feel
safe in having something
to say when the conversations
turned to salaries and
mortgages

or maybe that's
unkind. Maybe you
just wanted to understand
me better

when the four ninety-nine
red wine reaches me
I taking about the poems
I'm writing

grape glazed eyes
stare, squinting through
the sun, trying not to
smile. They move on

when we are alone
again we still pretend
I lie about the friends
I met for coffee and
you tell me I look
beautiful

I wonder if you know
the way we sleep

I hope not

and you've never asked
why I crawl out of the
sheets when sleep has
taken you

I sleep on the floor
and slip back beside you
just before you
wake

we never mention doctors or pills
and you know not to hug me
too tight

I make tea for both of us
even though we don't drink
it. It's hard to shake
off the words our mothers said
about a cup curing
anything

when the birds are
still I open the window
and think of flying
to have a body light enough
to break free of
the mind

I take my first
lungful if air
but you reach out
and hold me
where my wings
should be

(they're broken now)

and I realise I'm not the
only one who pretends
to be asleep

you wrap me up
like old glass
in soft blankets

slip another book
off my bedside table
into your bag

and don't cry
until you've
shut the door

This is the aftermath
of my heavy living
the reflection of
a streetlamp
in a ***** puddle

the ringing sound
of keys being threaded
through fingers
Awaiting attack

strangers find me,
under the orange haze
of light, as if my body
is a broken truck
waiting to be
recovered

one of them tells me
to never trust a man
who walks in step with
his shadow

they say that ***
has a smell and
they’re right

the air itself
is choking on
exhaust films, on
the curling, reaching
smoke of a cigarette

my skirt (my skin),
is torn

some of the older ones
take trophies, tearing bits
of fabric away from
my body

as you would separate
a phone number from a
scrap of paper

I can afford new clothes,
of course, and the powder
that hits my mind and settles
it, the way that sand
thrown over snow
softens it

the racing thoughts,
the tides of red and gold
and yellow memories wash
over me

stinging my wounds
with their salt

no-one remembers pain
that can't break the skin

and on those nights where I
satisfy a lions need for meat

neither can I

Like food,
dreams are rationed

children slip through holes
in buzzing fences

like bees

the light touches
of a fly

unconcerned by chemical spills

and broken hazard
signs

He could tell I wasn't real
somehow. That the space
between us was longer
that the length of his
arm. I talked less
than he did, yet he was
quiet and still

I was to go out
and find a (some)
body to build a house
with. But he is too
much of a person
to shelter under

I never wanted a
garden but I wanted
a place to lie,
to let the sun
lick my back
as I read

I read everything
I couldn't think or
say for myself,
especially to him

He is kind and
tender and
I'm not

It's getting harder to fill
the silences. For my words
to reach my mouth

and I am desperate
to be more than a
ghost searching for
a body to climb
into

It's getting harder to believe
that this crack in the wall
is not, in fact, a gateway
to another universe

you stand beside it
beckoning, sweetly
smiling, and you know
that I would walk hot coals
to follow you,

what is a crack in the damm?

I do not trust the air
that I breathe,

a trick of God, made to make
me believe in

life

but I am dead, and I stare
blankly,

a dead stare,

through these rusty bars
that shatter like ribs around
my shaking heart

I dare not -

breathe

Word that once twisted
on my tongue like dancers
now stick, like sugar, to my lips
sweet honey locks that trap
the fire the eats me from
the inside - a body,
a cage, that echoes
bird less in the night
as I sit smoking out
the nightmares that wait,
like patent lovers, for me
to join them

When two words meet
there is a crack
running like spilt red
wine from one end of
my room to the
other

there are voices
living in it
young girls that
scream and laugh
as they fly through
the air on swings

old men that creek
when they move
and breath heavily
as if the weight
of their decades
is a physical onus

before my train leaves
I stand in the middle
of the room and spread
my arms as if they
are wings

my fingers don't touch
the plaster, which is strange,
after spending so many nights
convinced that the
parameters are closing
in on my dreams

I was brought up
to believe in last
looks and I have
grown up to believe in
railway stations and
airports

looking back it seems
cruel to be told that
your address isn't fixed
that there is no point
in learning to live with
the cracks

I leave a pink post it
over the crack
'Theres no place
like home' and as
I leave to front door
unlocked, I wonder how
full the carriage will be

and if the stranger
next to me will carry
a portmanteau

The spot where I split open
my heart like a vein
is marked with

white pebbles as smooth
as bones

in the centre
there is a pool of
ice water

I like to pludge
into

submerge myself
and fold into
the wrinkles

that appear in
crows feet

on every inch
of my skin

the shell of
my body

shaking

the bird inside
my chest

dying

as my organs
freeze

Bounced

a mother figure
to two, a name
on a Christmas card
to four

when I realised
I was still a
child

and bitterness
wasn't an
option

I grew up
like a broken
nose

out of joint

Bounced

at the service
there are tears
beside me

I imagine a
body burning
and feel
warm

the lick of flames
on gray skin

my indifference
grows like I
imagine the
fire roaring

behind the curtain

heating up

Bounced

the house is
empty and
smells

unusual

like something has
been left in there
too long

they are not
there now but
it lingers

I tried to take
her dresses but
she was thinner
as a girl than
I am now

jealously

is a feeling
I'm familiar with

and it's easier
to understand

Bounced

we are waiting
for a buyer

and I imagine
how it feels
to have a piece
of your heart
trapped in bricks
and mortar

Bounced

one time,
I wanted to ask her
how it felt to
take notes of
the war

if she'd ever thought
of waving a white
flag and crumbling

drowning in the
rubble rain of
The Blitz

I wanted to hear
her say something
human

so I could
visualise and
see a bit of
her in myself

Bounced

I'm still caught up
on the autopsy
like a piece of
fatty tissue on
a scalpel

and my thoughts
are metal and
cold

the number of
zeroes on a
cheque

Bounced

at night
the gray whispers
of smoke that
weave like ghosts
from the end of
your cigarette
reach my window
and freeze on
the glass like
a handprint
that presses gently
through
my dreams

I imagined we’d grow gray together
and take winter sun holidays
somewhere we could warm our bones

cut out coupons from newspapers
stacking up in a jam jar
next to the fruit bowl

you’d rent guidebooks out of the library
and I’d take evening classes
so that I could understand
black tied waiters

you’d find it cute and impressive
and you would hold my hand tightly
during take off

the plan was that we’d walk around
foreign supermarkets and guess
the contents of the cans

they’d be faded beach towels
and the sticky scent of tanning lotion

our antiquated skin would burn easily
if we didn't smother it

but I’m not sure it matters
anymore, fretting over factors

we already have tumors
growing like doubts in our chests

we have nurtured them,
tended to their hungers and thirst
until we have none of
our own