Breakfast is the hardest meal,

silver spoons scraping China bowls

coffee, black, sugared
swirling down into my ragged stomach

I want to burn down this kitchen
with it's stove and kettle that
unsettle me

floorboards scorched with my hot feet, a thin grey dressing gown that hangs

limply around my limbs

I want to sit at the breakfast table and scornfully scratch hearts into the wood

there is no love here

only bowls and spoons
kettles and stoves

A black voice,
thick with the promise of a new life

a better world

enters me

I am that world
I am that voice

sifting through brown earth
with my bitten fingernails

I explore
hungry for treasure

and tomorrows

but I am just a smuggler
intent on bringing

the past with me

land sharks

that follow the scent of blood

and I am always bleeding

I smile and wait for the Autumn,
for the long breaths and deep pauses of Summer to fade

I sit on the porch swigging spirits, but the ghosts are within me and not
without

I swallow pills,
one blue, two white
two round, one flat

pills to stop my heart from racing
pills to stop the twitching
pills to **** the memories that lurk, like dark men in alley ways

he was not dark
it was not an alley way

there was no long grass to lick
my body, no rough wall to bruise my back

no, it was not outside at all

laying in a darkened migraine room, wrapped in a filthy sleeping bag

whilst strangers laugh in kitchens, smoking *** and drinking beer

but I still know the weight of a man leaving a bleeding, stinging, ****

and the frantic showering off of evidence

I will be asked if it was slinky and if my lips were scarlet

I will cry into the pillows I wish he'd smothered me with

every Summer, I will sit
and shake with memories

as if the very sun were to rub salt into my wounds

I will count out pills, swallowing them with lukewarm water

and I will wait

wait, wait, wait

for Autumn

I crave
to sing
my sadness
to sleep

suffocate it
with my
pillow

they tell me that
it's chemical

or that everyone
is sad

I am a child
in a summer
dress

a young girl
smeared in sugar
white powder clinging
to the edges of
my mouth

burn it
bury it

another pill?

go sit in
black chairs

and tell your
deepest
darkest
secrets

to a kind stranger
sitting opposite
you

take a train
take a plane

walk, stamp, squash
it into the smouldering
street

some people so like
the smell of
molten tarmac

as it sticks
to the soles
of shoes

an imprint
a remnant

a ghost

A kiss is just a kiss
they say,

but your bones shudder
against mine

as your tongue guts out
the trenches of my mouth

counting the cavities of my
sugar wrecked teeth

I want to believe them
(I think)

as I wear your shirts, long and hanging by my hungry thighs

love notes carved into my flesh

scars that stretch, like rubber

and the bitter aftertaste of
love

leaves me shaking into your
skin

the edges where I end and you
begin

I have tasted
air where wine
once was

sobriety, they call it

no more dancing drunk
and brainless

the battle of thought and
feeling

raging on

as they force feed black coffee
drenched in sugar

sweet, but sweat
like

I favour gin
with whispers of whiskey

my left leg shaking
stomach swollen

I feel my glands swell
swell, my eyes puff
out

my chest loosen as
my morals tighten

dissociated daydreams
fade and reality
sharpens

sobriety, they call it

the slow death of
knowingness

I have tasted war

in the acid gasps
and swollen glands

in the crunching of
crumbling teeth

in bruised knuckles that force
themselves fiercely down throats

in fingers dripping with saliva
and sugar

in the scent of bread baking
slowly in the kitchen

that has become my
battlefield

I remember counting pennies
with the wrinkled hands of my grandfather,

gnawed fingernails and cracks full of antiseptic,

hands that had once held a gun steady now shake with effort

bronze circles of currency stacked in piles of ten,

ten fingers to wrap around a hot mug of coffee

black, four sugars, as milk has started to curdle in his age wrecked stomach

we count, we stack, we wait,
we laugh as the pounds pile up,

ten,

ten fingers to fret the instrument his protruding ribs have become

ten fingers to hold as the IV goes down

ten fingers to mould dough and break bread, like his wife did before she

stopped

ten fingers for doctors to tap on
blue, collapsed veins

ten seconds to share his strung out last breath

ten fingers, ten toes, keep moving

Wild colours of rage
stir in my heart
when our lips
meet

months back
we were neutral
blue

slowly
the yellow of me
wrapped

around the green
Earth of
you

& now brown
live wire wraps
around my tongue

& I can taste
the electricity
of love

I think of you in that poppy field
your red lips bleeding secrets,
emerald stalks, blending scarlet scars into flesh. My cold shoulder
when I turned my face away

it seems like a trick of the light, now. When I reach my fingers across our bed, tangle a lock of your hair around my bitten fingernails

we pretend to forget the little things, like if we take sugar in our coffee or who's turn it is to take out the trash

we promise to hold onto the best parts, as if we are dolls that can be dismantled and remade by the hands of a child

but it's the laughs that disappear first, like the poppies whose petals we blew away so carelessly,

thinking there was a whole field when really there was just

us

I think of that green eyed
jealousy eating your heart.
The bitter pill that slides down your throat into your stomach acids. It rattles like dried peas
in a metal tube. Your fingers fret strands of my hair and I wince in agony. I am desperate to be held by another. To mix in with the marrow of their bones. But you are emerald and full of poisons. Spreading a plague of pitiness. I hold your hand in mine, still, but I pray for broken bones. Fractures. Splinters. Nails ripped clean off and blood. Thick, warm blood.

A candy striped knitted blanket covers were frail thighs,
resting underneath her hands that have baked bread, dug earth and planted tulips.
Hands that have stroked the head of a new born baby, still glistening and ******.
Hands that have crawled out thirties Jewish ghettos.
I reached out to touch them and she turned to me and said,
'Even my wrinkles have wrinkles'

It scares me when you smile at me,
white teeth remind me of scaling cliffs
pink lips are ribbons tied around a car crash tree

I am afraid of you, deathly afraid
as I wrap myself around you like a vine, holding you at your word

tightening the ropes around your heart as it beats out a rhythm to the pattern of my breaths

I hold each one in my mouth, circling it, like wine, into the crevasses
I spit it out, then
and forget the taste

but I can never forget
your pink lip, white teeth
smile

I won't forget the night I learnt how to fight,
how I kicked my high-heeled feet and kissed the night

there were patterns in the sky,
from stars that weeped as I dried my eyes

he said I'll walk you home, and I said fine
I never thought that he'd be mine

or I'd be his, tied to his bed,
scarlet lips begging to be fed

I found my feet alright, that day
as I let him have his way

when he was done I felt like Pan,
one wish away from being a man

it was over, my heart stirred
and cursed the fact I was a girl

Women tell me their stories.
things that ring like a bell;
an alarm bell, a warning.

What happened to me isn’t unique, I found
yet still. It is mine.

Lips, thighs, softness
hair, mouth, coarseness
*******. brains, burnt out

I can hear the blood pounding in my ears
as he goes down on me.
Down where I wither and die

These men are not monsters,
yet they loom with the rope of a hangman,
black hoods, black boots and hands
That throttle our throats, bringing death with them

They do not know that this is a relief
for our tongues to swell in mouths until we can no longer
breathe

We marry them, sometimes
thinking they won’t turn on us
that they will keep us warm and safe

We go to their beds, willingly
at first,but later we are forced
down onto the rough carpet,
where our thighs smart from the fabric,
the friction

Mostly, though
we hurry past them in the street
clutching our keys between our fingers
as they lurk in dark corners

But we cannot escape them
these men with the power to end our lives.

I talk to these women and find their stories stirring in me
each word filling me with courage
Yet we know, we all know, that sharing words is not enough
to stop these predators,
these sharks that hunger for our flesh and blood

we can only re-pin our dresses, make up our faces
and face them

I conjure you, out of yellowed newspapers and matches.
I come to recognise the scent of you, through which you untie the core of me. I swallow you down as the hoards devour religions. People banging on the doors of churches. Swallowed up by scripture. I wanted to see God, caught between your teeth. To cut out your Adam's apple and place it
between my lips. Consuming your masculinity with a single, careless kiss. Anatomy's foundations rocking like an antique chair. Stripped wood that still sings of trees, chopped down in their prime.
This destruction of youth that should sicken me, thrills me to my trembling bones. Each blade of gentle green grass,  grows in the sunlight and I pick
each daisy as carefully as I pick from the throng of young men that hound me. Voices ringing, reaching, touching
silk sheets, glistening with sweat. I lick the knife, metal caressing metal, blood on steal.

I am ready to receive him.

I cried for you
a flash of silver
between my teeth
lips, scarlet and drip-
ing

at seventeen I knew
the weight of you,
each hair on your arms
as you pressed my back
into the stained carpet

the Japanese tattoo
that struck me,
tracing the thick, black lines
with my eyes

a quick glimpse of my
grandfather, mixing bread
with milk and whiskey

flowers that grew, evergreen
in the garden where
he'd chase me

laughter ringing through the air,
cheesecloth blue dresses
and black, buckled shoes

you eat me, heart first
then each sense in turn.

I welcome the loss of
them all.

The touch of your
nails in my thighs. The
taste of blood as your
rotten mouth consumes
my own. The sound
of flesh beating flesh.
The sight of sweat beads
resting on your brow. The
smell of ***** seeping
through skin.

In a moment
I am no longer
a girl

but a woman eating
the words off my clothes,
smarting, sinister ****

a ***** kitchen floor
is waiting. The cool relief
of the tiles on my
burning skin

and a reflection of a woman,
no longer whole, yet still
alive

Red nails between stained teeth
Biting.

Orange wool skirts that scratch thighs
Itching.

Yellow youth that sits, back arced like a cat
Wasting.

Green fingers that grow roses and vegetables
Watching.

Blue lips that kiss cold mouths
Freezing.

Indigo jeans that fade in sunlight
Warming.

Violet eyes that flash with goodbyes
Leaving.

How quiet it is here
now that the yellowness of
our youth has withered

I do not complain,
for I see your kind, soft eyes
smile at me across the room

I hear your heavy breath
as you inch your way
closer

the wheeze that whirls
from lung to air,
on a breeze of long -
suffering longing

I hold out my wrinkled hand
to touch your paper thin skin,
trying hard not to bruise
or break

and you take it, silver flashing
between your fingers as you
stab, stab, stab

my chest

as the pills reach your stomach
and you wrap tight around me
holding, holding, holding

onto my heart

Prozac killed the poet
with it's blister packs
of two times ten
every twenty eight days
taken twice a day
with water

They came again
last night.

Eyes bulging
as the air was forced up
through their throats,
out through their
silent, screaming mouths.

The more I pressed,
the harder they kicked.
Muddy grass flying up into my face.

My veins are a chemical mess,
lust, lunacy and loathing
coursing from my heart
into my blood.
Filling my body up
in the absence
of love.

I can taste it,
as the bodies seep through the walls and windows

I can remember
the moment that
life left them.

I like to think
of myself

as a fruit
you've plucked

or a vegetable
you've pulled

from the ground

Sweet and Spring like

I fit into your hand
like a bud

that you make
blossom

I want to be
like the heart
that beats in
your chest

thud, thud, thud

never knowing
that one day
it will

s
t
o
p

You are oxygen,
giving life to
a fire,
to a girl
who will reduce you
to
ashes

You are gnawing me down
to the bone

bones

grinding, marrows mixing

blood

red blood that trickles down
my chin

the taste of iron and oxygen

you were my first, you know

(no one will believe that)

blind drunk and filthy finger
nails

scratching out the letters of
my name

my heart withered and weak

ribs breaking under the weight

(the dead weight)

of a man

Voices come and go
with the wind
a light breeze
spinning leaves
amber, scarlet, evergreen
I know I need to hear
you voice, with it's
hooks and snares
that clip my heart
I know I need to feel
your skin, your silky
touch that sends icy
shivers down my spine
I know I need to see
your eyes, haunted
hunted, hungry for me
I know. I know.

I know

I heard you liked to
save, that you called yourself
a saviour

so I pulled my knees
tight to my chest, rocked myself
to sleep

grew my hair long and dyed it
gold

found an oak tree to tie my silk
scarf around the strongest branch

my neck poised, like a cat
ready to pounce

and waited

now, they're out with torches burning
voices calling my name

in the soft leaves of the forests
they look for footprints

and I

foolish and desperate
cling to you, like an icicle

(fitting for our frozen hearts)

and I have been lost

or stolen

But then
in a moment
you were an un-
pinned butterfly

like cigarette smoke
chasing the stars

and the scent of you
made my heart
swell

pulsing red with longing
and beating, beating out
our names

I can hear my mother laughing,
as my father washes his filthy knuckles

I remember, the scene of what I thought was love

how she handed him his jacket
every morning
and how he kissed her cheek goodbye

the way slept together
their lungs synchronised
'Breath in, breath out'

and when he gave her the fat lip
because the brandy brand
was wrong

or because his shoes were ruined

I still thought,
as only a girl could

love is not without pain
but pain is not without love

My body is uncharted territory
(You wish)
A map that teases - taunts
(He said)
The road to Armageddon is paved
(With love, my dear)
The touch of an unpainted nail
(Scratched into my back)
You are mine, now
(Unpin your dress, my dear)
The Holy man slides into me
(I sing a psalm to calm him)
Thrusts and moves
(Blood, deep red, flows)
Kisses me with whiskey lips
(The wrinkles around his eyes)
Exit, stage left, you breathe again
(Ssssh, be quiet my dear)
Unconvinced ears, hostile eyes
(I am real)
Birthing women turn their backs
(See me)
Virgins untrap their wings
(Believe me)

Hate - black hate -
moonless - starless
- deeper than your kisses
consumes me

what if this is really
all that love is

a limp handshake -
shattered illusions of
dreams

they still hound me.

Alice, you said -
what if it hurts?

What if makes your skin crawl?

What if? What if the trace of a fingernail
steals your soul and...

Emily, I said -
your soul is such an easy thing
to lose

I paced the floors, waiting

the entrails of my heart swarmed

the spot where we'd last kissed

a muscle memory, so ordinary

and ordinariness

will be the death

of us

He is, within me
hollowed and hoarse
as the sand creeps
grain, by grain into our shoes
a molecule, they call it
a moment.

we left the ***** lights of the city.
for what? to blossom, to bloom
as if we were mere buds and yet
we are already older.

as the waves roar, like thunder
lapping the shore.

He had a tattoo
instead of a knife or gun,
that much I knew.

I was naked and edible,
dark cherry lips, parted, legs
spread, open to anyone,
starved, famished.

I moulded into his touch,
fluttering and spluttering.

My ribcage was empty,
I killed my heart when I said,
'I don't want you
like that.'

The ashes are still hot.
When daylight breaks
they are sifted like
stones in search of
diamonds.

There is nothing precious.
Here.
Anymore.

His tattoo, pressed
against my *******,
rising and falling
as his tongue swallowed pieces
of myself I was yet
to taste.

As he plunders, I imagine
all the places I visited as a girl.

I wonder if I ever truly left
the photos where I was once young
and whole. Whole.

in a way I can never be again.

I wonder if they live inside me still,
inside these shattered bones.

Summer days of warm breezes,
writing my name into the sand,
cocooning the letters in hearts and never,
not once, thinking, 'I am alive.'

As I lay naked on this rough
carpet, bleeding and *******
over myself.

As I learn too late
that words said can exist
without meaning.

I think of those summers,
long ago.

I can never go back but, really,
I have never left.

Bite through my dark
lips, taste the cherry (red)
that sits there like
an invitation

kiss me like you
used to kiss me,
forget the ghosts
that now lay
between us

the boxes full
of bones, tongue
the ulcers, unafraid
to leave traces,
traces of cells

hold my mouth
in your mouth,
just for tonight

and let the skeletons
settle and sleep
in your arms

I can taste
the metal
of the sky,
steel stars and
aluminium moons,
iron gates,
shielding hearts like
a rib cage, but ribs
break
and the iodine smell
of broken skin
seeps into the
floor, like a blood
stain
bright red at first,
but dulling to
a ***** brown
I am Eve
before the apple,
my snake
merely butter-
fly and I can
see Adam, reach
his hand towards
me, lips smirking
as he feels me
twist, like tin
foil, away
from his
waist

Uncharted territories, rain stained skies,
sea waves washing pebble beaches

We sit, hand in hand,
fingers finding hearts,
clenched like fists

We fools, we reckless fools,
shirt sleeves entwined,
trapped, like golden
braids of hair

Starlit shadows,
moving in a moment of time,
together

Or not

What mysterious still lurk in human bones,
what demons remain hidden, waiting, waiting
to pounce

and what Angels too, sing from muscled cages
tongues dipped in honey

what answers lay hidden in blood,
a flash of silver away from being
discovered

does my heart beat out a song or a warning

do my pink lungs map out a battle
or tell the secrets of everlasting life

It is life, she reminded herself,
when the moon shone black

Always life

When it comes down to it
I am the light that falls
That fails, as the tide rolls in
Where I am trapped in the body of
The favourite child, gone to seed
Turned black and blue with the weight
Of sadness and the knot in my
Stomach as I grow inch by
Inch into a shadow
Where I will stand in the mouth of
An angel singing and the voice will
Cut down to your
Bones

They said I had my grandmother's eyes
Cynical and bright, never watery
Like theirs

I saw her once, baking bread,
Kneading dough with floury knuckles
Into the shapes of her children

Did I come from that batch?

Could I trace the crumbs back five generations
And see a man in Victorian dress treat a lady
The way she deserved to be treated

Is this who I am when I'm begging?

Bleeding on a bathroom floor, in the moments
When I swear I could reach out and touch God

Is this void theirs?

Chewing my fingernails, playing with the flesh
Between my teeth, tasting myself

Or when I haven't washed my hair in weeks
And my skin shakes against my bones
Like loose leaves clatter in the gutter

I have my grandmother's eyes

I am kneeling
on a cold floor
concrete eating into
my knees the sky opens and

I am shuddering in cold water
a bathtub full of freezing
water, counting down the seconds
till I become a ghost and

I am shaking in the corner
the ocean in front of me
as far as the eye can see is
blue seas and waves that wrap
like leaves around a tree bracnch and

I feel the glass under my feet
break like a heart, crystalised and
frozen and

I hear human voices pull me
backwards, one last stand,
one last throw of the dice and

I oblige
with my life,
with my very last breath and

I fall
into the warmth
of a whisper
a whimper
a bang

At playtime,
we skipped hand in hand
making whispered pacts of
forever

when the bell rang,
we ran towards the sound
or maybe it was away
from it

it doesn't matter

our breath would smoke
as we hit the cold air,
our shoes would catch and
click along the pavement

as we went

the weight of our secrets
would press through our skin,
through the soles of our feet

as we placed them, one foot
in front of the other foot, onto
the tarmac

leaving footprints with our pain
but we didn't care, as long as we could skip,
hand in hand

tomorrow

My fingers are long, wrinkles
running their length, their colour
vibrant, blues and purples,
overlapping like the feathers
of a brilliant bird

I am on the outside now,
looking in. I see myself
planting vegetables at
seventy, tulips and roses,
the dirt wraps around my hands
like a second skin

I shall gather a garden
to me, hide in the creases
of plants, the call of my
name shall shake tree
branches and yet
I shall not move

I will sit, filthy and
fragrant, fold in on myself
like a house of cards and
listen to the whisper
of the wind

Where the land splits between us
the sea wears your name like a bell,
ringing, ringing out to me, I come
grabbed at the navel, by the sound of
your syllables, you are here now,
you are everywhere, the heat in the
sun, the prickle of air against
my neck, we share a cigarette
you don’t smoke, do you?
you will smoke like a forest fire
burning out slowly, across acres
of scorched land, you grab me
by the ankles, like a hand from underneath
the bed, that nightmare that we all share,
that monster we’re too old to believe in
we believe in it now

My mouth is made of glass
that breaks each time a word
hits it, my hands break out in
Boils each time a finger touches
their flesh, my eyes are made of waters,
that break like waves against the sand,
my ears are made of rocks from which
mermaids sing out, invitations to anyone,
my heart beats like a caged bird,
timid and alone, so utterly
alone

My father wanted me to marry a barrow boy,
he imagined the smell of oranges going
before me, everywhere, my dresses
drenched in citrus

We would pick the best and sell the
rest, holding them in our hands like
precious gems, we would eat them
in front of each other, juice
spilling from our lips, we would
lick the pips away and swallow
mouthfuls of flesh

My father wanted me to marry a barrow boy
to keep the fruit of his labour
alive

Our bodied are built
by billions of tiny, red
hearts (within hearts)

I love you
despite infection

my intention is to
swim in the sea of
your blood

and find a tiny, red heart
of my own

I imagine my body changing
Swelling, spreading, the edges
Of me never ending, flesh
Meeting flesh, lips locking,
Eyes tilting, red wine swirling
At the bottom of a glass

I imagine my skin melting,
Peeling back to the back
To the bone, rivers of
Veins running around the
Heart of me

I imagine holding you to me,
Blending our bones into
One

Imagine

In the hospital I am drinking coffee
from a plastic cup, it’s edges have melted
into my hand, we are one, the coffee and my hand

There is no time except the movement of two
hands, in reverse, the movement of one hand
chasing down the other, in reverse

There are plastic seats that scratch through
the cheap cotton covering my legs,
they are thin, worn leggings, covering my legs

The doctors pass in secret, we are not supposed to see
to see the doctors pass, in secret they move like
ghosts we are not supposed to see

My grandmother is not yet a ghost
she has flesh still, incandescent and bright, it is on fire,
it glows pale incandescent and bright

they walk towards us, the doctors, these ghosts
and we see them, these ghosts, these doctors
we are not supposed to see

we go to her, my grandmother
incandescent and bright
she is glowing in her hospital bed

already an angel, an angel without wings
the wings that she has are burnt to her back
she won’t be flying anywhere

she is sinking, sinking into her bed
incandescent and bright she blends into
the white sheets
seamlessly

we watch her, sinking seamlessly into the white sheets
we watch her burnt wings crumple beneath the
six stone weight of her

when she stops breathing, we all breath
in and out, we smell the charred bones
that death left, with each breath
we take in what’s left

we leave the hospital bed, the itchy chairs
the ghostly doctors we leave behind
our coffee cups, cut free from our hands

we breathe in each step, our skin
burning for fresh air,
we walk step by step

and the light from the street is so
bright, so incandescent
and bright

She smiles through the smeared lipstick
Glass,
The smile of a lover torn away at the
Heart,
Sad and gentle, she fills the red outlines with
More,
Crimson circles of time touching
Flesh,
She empties the bottle into the
Glass,
Fills the amber nectar into her
Heart,
Warm, embracing, she yearns for
More,
For a hand to reach out and touch her
Flesh.

Hold me, she said
don't fold under
the weight of
my heart