It was beautiful to touch
the curve of your spine

outside, gray skies dance
over umbrellas, foam cups of
sugared coffee sit tight
between gloved hands

everything is m o v i n g

yet in here, I am still,
limbs kneaded to the
curve of your

s
p
   i
n
e

I try to remember the sound
of padded paw prints,
foxes chasing rabbits
underneath trees,
shedding their leaves
across autumn

the smell of honey
and lemon rising form
a bowl of boiling water

but I can't,

these fresh sheets
should remind me of forests
and old wives cold remedies

but instead, your hands rest
upon them, skin brittle and
transparent , as I place damp
cotton buds to your chapped lips

thinking only of winter
folding before us, electric blankets
that burn through
to my thighs

leaving red marks that spread
like sly smiles from the corners
of your mouth

when they took
the wires
out

I remember braiding hair
at the mouth of the river,
golden strings weaving
between my fingers

legs stretched roughly
across long grass, the
itch of it spreading
under our cotton
dresses

I imagine, the waves
washing over my face
as I swim down consuming
the deep black drop
of nothingness,

as I cover my ears
to the roars
of planes,

turn my guts away
from the motion
of a boat

I listen,
to the beat of
your heart as I thread

strand over strand

and pull

You called it a race
to the stars, each one
bursting as we reached
its edges,  the whites of
their eyes becoming yellow,
sweeping the sky in
orange kisses,

and in those explosions
of colour and fire,
I realised that love
was chasing us

into nothingness

It was your turn to wake me,
your arched back stretching,
muscles flexing as you
lengthened your limbs
towards me, covering my skin
with yours, in creases that
whisper,

good morning

I wanted a man
to gasp at the heels
of my shoes,

I'd pick them for their colour
and become it,

as if sequins could stitch
to my soul and make it

shine

blue eyes dancing
with firelight

arches of ash
under which we shall

kiss

One by one
our memories
will become
boxed photographs
and these colours
will fade like
stars, disappearing
at daybreak

The look in your eyes
hooks me,

taking me back to the days
of my grandfathers, dark
whiskey in hip-flasks kept close
to their chests, eating tinned fruit
and singing to warm themselves up
on cold nights

I remember the sound of their voices,
thick and throaty, as if forty
cigarettes a day had eaten
into their chords

I wear their blazers sometimes,
Over a red dress, imagining myself
before they thought of me

wondering if they felt the rain fall
on their face as blood washed the
souls of their shoes

I know that your green eyes
are searching my face for signs and
similarities, the past threatening to
seep through the open pores
of my skin

I am corrupted

To hold

your heart

in my hand

would be

enough

to feel

alive

we spend our evenings
taking long drags of
expensive cigarettes
and shots of single
malt whiskey, oblivious
to the yellowing of our skin
and liver, you place your
hands over my hands
as I tremble in the cold air,
stretching our limbs towards
the sky,  as if we our
soaking in starlight

In the dark
we touch
souls

not knowing
if we exist
at all

when we wake, I trace
the lines of your lips
with my lips, cherry
flavoured and empty of
questions

I have tried to tame the universe,
as it's fabric teared into violent
mornings, racing towards ******
afternoons,

messages left in smudged
fingerprints across sheets
of time,

licking the sky gray

You trace the lines
of my tattoos, gently,
and ask, softly,
for their stories

so I open my skin to you,
letting you see the layers
that I've buried beneath
black ink

I've heard people talk of
the power there is in
destroying something gentle,

but I think that I will always,
always, let voices of autumn
take me by the hand and
whisper secrets

and resist crunching leaves
with my feet

Stars open between
the trees in which
I’m hiding,
the river catching
their light,

ghostly reflections
of the men
I have known
wink at me from
their watery depths

I play a game,
imagining a
narrow boat
that a family
inhabit,

a small child
running its length,
folding their bed
into kitchen
space

inside, I am
panicked,
knowing that I
cannot swim and
that the forest
is closing
in

Across the pillow,
I stare at your sleeping
skin, wondering if it
will full todays
hunger

March is made of madness,

butterflies that flutter
against my brain, my
heart, a wasp in
a jar

my voice shakes,
I drink cheap cider
that burns my insides,
from dented cans
that cut my lips

earning war wounds
as I try to cover
my battle scars

sleep chases me
and I hide in doorways,
dressed in black and blending,
begging the flickering
orange streetlights
to swallow me

his serpents tongue
licks my ear

soft, quiet and deadly

the fruit I should never
have eaten rises in my throat,
like anger

threatening to flee

and I have no choice
but to swallow
it

I trace
running rivers
with my feet,
around corners
and pockets
of rocks

I am
seeking you,
like a child
will endlessly
wait, watching
clouds turn into
faces that
they recognise

under the sun,
my body burns
without you,
against barren
wastelands and
scorched earth,
I pound, foot
fall, after foot
fall, racing rivers
to reach you
first

I would have moved
mountains, with my bare
hands, if you'd asked me
too

instead my hands wrap,
tight, inside themselves,
fingers weaving patterns
with each wave of
my heart beat

aching, breaking with
each rise and fall,
quick paced and
frantic

as a child, you're told

- the devil makes work
for idle thumbs -

but you are just a man

We always kiss in
the dark, scared to
know if we keep
our eyes open

instead, I take in

(smell)

the scent of your
aftershave, mulling
like wine, into
my neck,

(taste)

a cigarette, taken
with coffee,

(hear)

the sound of
your teeth
clicking against
my teeth,

(feel)

the sweep of
your tongue
filling my
cavities

the movement
of four
embraces me

and in that blindness
my heart beats,
faster, as if
fierce love is as
simple as

darkness

There is a part of me
so hidden, that a gentle
coaxing of a finger
is as meaningless to it
as a single stone that falls
in a storm

in its silence,
I grow,
weaker

I am shattered, like glass
surrounded now
with splinters

after all these years, I am
still trying to wash it
away

the constant splashing
of water on my
face

does nothing to cool it

hipbones echoing,
hollow and
weak

the taste of his lips
on my lips
has lingered

like a secret,
I drink it, deep
down into my
throat

consuming me

(and only me)

Lay with me,
between the sand
and the sea

weave my hair
between your fingers,
in time to the wind

kiss me, as if Monday's
don't exist

and we will make sense of
this senselessness

As a child, I believed in
April, in nights that
drew way from winter,
and pulled sharply into
Spring

the smell of polish
soaking into old oak
furniture

my fingers playing
lightly with the
wind

and daffodils

now, I dread
the frequent showers,
the Easter eggs planted
like mines,

surrounding me

in that moment of
unkowingness, I am a child
again, checking flower beds
for clues and seeking sweetness
in neglected corners
of earth

I was never interested
in hunting until I lost
myself

I have given each part of my
heart a name

attached it to a memory and
age

this one is seven, cutting off
the blonde hair of Barbie dolls
and painting in the plastic, fleshless scalp with my
wax crayons

now she is eleven, anxious walks
from school, skipping self consciously, aware, painfully
aware of everything

the size of her fists clenched
in fear against her palms,
the length of her nails scratching
out moments so that they
pass

(faster)

now, I am ageless,
nameless - I don't belong
to anyone, not even to
myself

and it is better this way,
to be dragging my knees over
the glass of a shattered whiskey
glass

crawling, the dirt is where I
belong now, it is where I
nest - and the state of my
skin is nothing

nothing compared to the torn fabric of my past

aged seventeen and bro-
ken

cheap *****,
dangerously cheap
*****

a spare room, is where my body is hijacked, and the very core of him
becomes the core of me

as he takes me,
piece by bloodied piece

until there is
nothing left
of a girl

no hearts,
no parts,
no names

the bitterness,
the knowledge,
that it was ***
that broke me

and that only ***
can make me
whole again

Too soon, she became a human,
climbing perilously

(unwinged)

to kiss the sky,
to see waves roll over oceans

(she would tame a tiger with
her mortal fingers)

inside, she knew that it would take
magic, not love

to save her

I have burns
on my hands
from touching
you

as the blisters
burst

I feel you
eradicate
my fingerprints

and

(again)

I

become

nothing...

as a child, I drank
cherryade through strawberry
lace straws,

I remember the taste
of the first sugar
rush, innocent
and reckless

now, there is the morning
after, holding hands with
hangovers on commuter
trains

and in the bottom of glasses
and mirrors, truth shines

and although my drinks are
still red, the wine

reaches my heart, faster
and sits
in the place of
a lover

and the

crash

is no longer

cushioned

by something sweet

My heart

hurts

from

the iodine

the lick of a metal

tongue

eyes sting

wounds

need healing

but I'm in love

with

the

Iodophor

I let you fold
into the creases
of my skin

like a balm
that softens
down to the
sixth layer

my fingers run
smooth upon
it

there are no Braille
letters to read

secrets from

I remember the way
I used to itch
before you

the passionless redness
of angry cells, desperate
yet unable to burst

now, your fingerprints
burn bright

upon me

and each freckle I
previously hated

is another reminder
of your

touch

With my eyes
I forge canyons,
deep rivers and wild
landscapes, mountains
that kiss the sky and
land locked lakes

I move, limb by
limb, away from the
sadness that haunts
me, with my feet
I map out my future,
with my fingers
I bury the past

I imagine
you finding me
amongst the rocks
I lay against their edges
as if I am a mermaid
with golden hair
instead a mortal girl
trapped, in a believable
body

when you reach me,
your spread me
like a plague
and the stones
beneath me
shall shake

afterwards, we are face
to face, staring into
the eyes of each
other, and in that
reflection we become
enemies

you leave me, wordless

my eyes now,
like a camera,
containing images
that never develop
into landscapes
of love

It's a romantic city
(apparently) but
for me it's

the wet London streets
I walk to reach you

stale milk in coffee
shop teas, sugar spoons left
on greasy table tops

the drizzle of rain
relentlessly beating

the orange lights of
taxis, magnified
in the droplets

***** staircases that take
me underground

the songs talk of
Waterloo Bridges
and sunsets

that bounce off the
Thames, as if the water
is polished glass

but I sat there one night
crying, my heart breaking
over South Bank

and the sunlight was never the same

give me battered books
piled dangerously in doorways

dusty corners of theatres

and the rain

Cold hands leave cold marks
on blue skin

I know this

my fingers tightly
sealed

in blue rubber

he smiles, across a body

across a thousand bodies I have searched for his smile

I have looked in cavities

and between bones

I have rooted for the living
amongst the dead
that smile, his smile

across bodies, telling stories

these are our stories

cold tables of metal

and hearts to match

we're the opposite

of love

These are the poems that aren't about us,
or about love, but tell stories that weave
upon skin like silk, and echo back the
whispers that are kept within

twelve times yesterday,
I called you. between coffee -
breaks and

gossip

you never answered

today, I leave messages
that make me sound like
a lost child, a shrill scream
that shakes down the
wires

did you receive
it?

did you feel the edges of my body
become the edges of your
own?

your eyes were always bright
and brilliant, blue in the way that
the ocean is

but isn't

tomorrow, it will stop
I'll take my shoes off and run
wild with the winds and roars

of a silent

sea

palm to palm
we sit, ghosts of
former lovers
hanging like last weeks
flowers between us

dead and disintegrating

I imagine it as
the sea, rough and
reckless, the salt
in the air turning
to sugar as I
sip it

slowly

A memory of you reaches out
a hand,

floating to the top of my
consciousness as if the
layers of time
are water

in it, you are
smiling and picking
currants out of scones

the flour that dusts
your fingertips touches
me, unawares

we are sharing sugar
between lips and

in that kiss I knew
we were sinking

sinking down between
the wavers of flesh
and moans

to be shipwrecked
with you, was a
fantasy

but now I am
sinking,

sinking,

without

you

Your voice is my
siren, leading me,
calling me,
my body is broken
on the rocks, tangles
of seaweed in my hair
the smell of salt
revives me and casts
scales of blues and greens
instead of skin and
my hair curling
to gold

Inhuman

I sit, staring at the crack
where my mirror as
split

I say my name inside my head

I don't belong to it
now

It is heavy on my tongue
and I remember how my
ears received it, long ago

the cold blanket of winter
warms me like whiskey

its whiteness shields me

I wake up and my limbs
refuse too

the clock sticks
twice,
the time is right

yet I am never there
to see it

backwards, I walk through my life
and the path of pills that have
allowed me to step between
worlds, between walls

as if they were made
of paper

Today, our only question
is whiskey or wine,

fire or silk

mixing drinks
with you is like
mixing colours

out of nothing

My love for you is
intimated by the
stars, as I hold it
tight, against my
chest, the speed of
light carries it
away from me

I will not stop because
you have stopped

I will look out of windows
and smile at faint traces
of snow

I will lick the sugar from
my coffee spoon

just like I lick the sugar
from your lips

I will watch waves crash
against rocks

feels waves wash against
my bones

I will read all the books in our library, twice, and stick post
it notes to mark the pages

because you never let me
keep place

keep pace with myself

I will **** the juice out
of an orange and let it
dribble down my chin

and stick there

I will not die inside
like you have
died

I will be childish and brave

curious and compassionate

I will do the things you
say I am too old
to do

and I will smile
reckless and
young at heart

as I slip between
the sheets

old age and cynicism
so close to brushing
my skin

as I try to avoid
touching you

Now we are sixty
five

we take walks in
the countryside

pretending to find
the air there
easier  

secretly, I wish for
the city

and the corrupted
cloud I had to

burst

to find you

I wrapped myself
around you, like
molten gold wraps
around a mould

and sets

our lives were
lines that ran
parallel

until they met

You unhook me like
a fish, still shaking
and terrified of being
eaten

as you let me go
I feel the weight
of you

against me

my face turned
seeking not to
see you

I am the flesh
and bones of
you

the carcass that
lies motionless and
rotting

outside in

I have lingered on
the edges of this
lake, like a flower

or the decapitated head
of a child's doll,
no longer interested
in playing

I wanted seven seconds
of silence, the stillness
of unturned pages and
leaves that are yet to
be crunched, underfoot

we ate with plastic knifes
and forks, food blending
into to the taste of it

no time exists here

at seventeen, we were
running, full of *****
we'd bought and wine
that we'd stolen from
cheap supermarkets

now we're here

where the days chase
us down like hungry
wolves and the air is
too heavy to smoke
through

we smoked a lot

and dragged the ash
from our dog ends
across your parents
new patio

into the shapes of
our names

I wanted you to call
for me in the morning
and sneak into my room
at night

I wanted us to be lovers,
the way that bare hands
feel under fesh sheets
and the taste of your
sweat on my lips

I wanted our bodies
to burst

to know fire and
tame it

your car hit something
solid as you fiddled,
one handed, between
the ribs of me

my wasp heart
tapping at the sides
of it's jar

I tasted blood for the
first time

beating against you

Before the coma,
silence was a virtue
we never indulged in

we would talk
until our throats
bled, our tonsils
burning as if
speaking words were
as warming as
eating raw chillis

we'd tuned our vocal
chords finely, semi -
tones were for
mornings as much as
black coffees

our bodies were
strings and ***
was just another
chord

a tangle of
limbs wrapped in
copper wire

after the car hit
you, we stopped.

the silence that took you
was big enough
for two

I take tea in the afternoon
as I wait to hear his foot -
falls approaching

I am on
edge until they
kiss my ears in their
heavy booted sound

I add sugar cubes
distractedly, as my
mouth adjusts to
the taste of him

a heaviness on my
lips, upon my neck,
the scratch of a scarf
that looks softer

I imagine the scratch
of a vampire fang to be
worse and breath in and
out my prayers that at
least he is by my side
before nightfall

he is a thing of
paleness and impatience,
I am a woman who works
the dead into shapes
that speak

we both seek answers
but know they will not
be found in the arms of
each other

yet still,
our hearts beat
as one

They are trawling
the sea bed for
clues, as if we are
simply a plane
to fall out of
the sky. Our
last kiss, spread
on meat trays,
our clasped hands
in body bags.

the fire that started
at our wingless
shoulder blades

proved fatal

I wake up to an
itch - ripples on
the surface of
my skin come
in waves,
beating against
the shell
of me

in the night
you are
no kinder

slipping between
the sheets like
a limb, a veil

I scratch, my
bitten nails

my body,
the coarse
strip, my finger
the match

striking

the

flame

I look at his face
and try to read
the crimes that
live in the lines
of his skin,
the murders
that ripple
in the air
between us
and the love
that sits like
a forrest fire
inside me