we kissed, like young lovers do
on bridges, in the pouring rain
finding beauty in each teardrop,

making promises we believed
with our whole hearts
we would keep,

now the relentless turning calendar
has rendered us old,

our hands wrinkled
but still clutched tightly
together,

knowing that promises mean nothing

(and everything)

when I look God in the eyes

I want to have the courage
to tell him that he has
the whole thing wrong

for I will look in your eyes

and know that I did not
have to die to reach

Heaven

your holy wine soaked lips

find mine at 2am as the stars

sigh above us

a prelude to the cold November sun

that will come

chilling our bones until they

fracture beyond

fusing back together

again

shadows -

concealing secrets

time digging in like a claw

there are messages
ebbing and flowing in the tide

moons collapsing

footsteps -

like locks

we leave a trail of sugar

with our fingers

on everything we touch

contaminating the surface

of the Earth

with sweetness

as our own teeth

rot

I am forever

searching

for the things I’ve lost

whilst looking in the wrong

places

I don’t know how it happened

I’m just so glad that

it did

the forgotten ones move amongst us,
voiceless

shifting shapes in the sand,

faceless ghosts haunting
our early morning cigarettes,

echoing in the hollow chamber of

spite
and lunacy,

we can see them, sometimes,
out of the corner of our eye,

the shadow in the corner of the room,
that we try to blink

away

your edges
fold around me
soft -
I sigh into your flesh
I fit -
like a glove
each dimple -
a journey I want to map -
leaving my fingerprints
I, a thief -
your skin
my plunder -
a victimless crime
for your arms -
wrapped around me as I
robbed you -
blind

I cannot promise you

forever

only this red wine soaked moment of

bliss

under a carpet of stars, sighing as our hearts

collide

infinite and unfathomable

a mystery for the universe to

unpick as we sit

waiting...

for the moon fold around us

safe and complete

a second of ecstasy

amidst the chaos the turning Earth

but I promise you

this

I think
that rain
if Mother Nature
weeping
looking down
at her creation
with regret
watching your
reckless fingers
break another
ingénue
heart

venom got into my bloodstream
the first time you smiled at me,
it runs through my veins,
shaking my spine,
breaking my bones down into dust,
my arteries are clogged with
longing for you

I make coffee at 3 am
and take it out to the porch
nursing the heat
between my freezing fingers

the stars smile down on me
I spell your name
like a new constellation
but I can't find you

here

I walk into headlights

it’s safer that way

I have known it... not

and so I play

by the rules of a game
of archaic fears and victim blaming

I walk into headlights

I walk

I hope

I pray

a car will come my way

(straight in my way)

and I am not blamed

(anymore)

you’re in my blood, like black ink

rewriting the next pages of my book

before I’ve closed the last chapter,

you’re in my bones, like calcium

laying the foundations for a lifetime

when I’ve only just begun

We are not strangers,
and yet, our names unknown
our lives, unspoken of

we navigate a see of,

first glances,
first dinners,
first dances,

I do not need to know your name,
for it is already woven into my own

I never believed in love at first sight,
I still don’t believe in it

but magic,
bewitching, spellbinding, enchanting
(magic)

I believe in that

You will triumph over the
battlefield of your brain

even when it’s clawing
white hot fingernails
behind your eyes

even when a scar seems
a million times more familiar
than a smile

(you will be okay, my darling)

you
will
be
okay

Stars are pinpricks reflecting
our footprints on the Earth,
in the sky, you can draw rings around them,
lines between them,
to see how you came to stand in one spot,
the route you took to get there,
unlike footprints, they can pass,
unseen on a cloudy night,
you can walk the sky, invisible,
not leaving a single breadcrumb behind you,
you can trick yourself that you will
never be found, but you will,

for pinpricks or footprints,
they always lead home

(whether we want them to or not...)

A fall

(in love)

comes after

(losing)

all resemblance of pride

you cannot be

(proud)

and

(in love)

love strips you

(bare)

and leaves you

(childlike)

innocent and raw

now I have

(fallen)

and I am a hundred times

(stronger)

for it

Hell itself does not contain

fire enough for my heart

when my eyes see you

souls soaring into

a twisted wreath

to be laid at

Heaven’s door

What is necessary for the heart

cannot always be translated by the mind

we live in the space between what is

what we wish wasn’t

and what we long will be

I am terrified of being

cut loose

I long to rip open the seams of my wound

and bleed, bitterly

***** stained breath
and the ruin of my family’s name

in the gaps of my bared

teeth

It was a lie when they said
that the power to change the world
lied within you

but the ability to transform
the small square of Earth
on which I stand

with a smile

lies within your heart and hands

Standing on the river bank,
looking down into the murky ripples of time,
ebbing away from me as I stare deeper,
I crunch leaves beneath my feet,
their brown and orange skin separates and sticks to the soles of my shoes,
a surprisingly strong autumn sun warms my face
and my heart,
a rare scene of peace and tranquillity
that soothes my soul
a moment of calm to contrast the
chaos in my mind,
and my spirit lifts into the sky,
at one with the unseen stars

forever, they say

you will not feel this way, forever

and I try, with every breath in my lungs,
to believe them

with every fibre of skin
on my bruised and beaten body

but I realise that I have already had
my chance at breaking free from
the shackles of sadness

this is it, I think

that ship sailed before
I even knew it was possible
for me to board it

and now, there is not even
the flicker of a candle light
at the end of the tunnel

hope has been squeezed from me
like the juice from a lemon
leaving only the bitter pips
for me to spit out

I realise, too late that
I am forever

forever lives through me

I follow the arteries from your wrist

to the centre of your heart

and nestle my head into your neck

following the breadcrumbs of memories

and stolen minutes of bliss

I have found my way home

“Do all poets wear masks?”

a stranger, unwittingly flung
into the path of the flurry
of my pen, asked me

No, I said. Only the sad ones...

“Aren’t they all sad?”

he said

(Check mate)

cracks appear

when I look in the mirror

and see your face

reflected back at me

those ocean blue eyes

and whisper thin smile

it’s as if you’re mocking me

with your beauty

the beauty that left

my heart in

cracks

my skin singes
with the love you
left

a bitter burning
that will leave me
forever branded

when I was eight,
I would pick blackberries
and eat them straight from the bush,

their purple juice would
stained my lips with
childhood joy and
wonder,

now I'm the wrong side
of thirty, and melt those
blackberries into
jam,

as if I am seventy

there is no joy left
in me, these days

only a weary
tiredness that aches
with longing for

what was,

those blackberry bushes
and purple fingers,

now fraught with
frailty

as I boil jam,
playing it like
a snake charmer

so as not to
spoil my mixture

(as I have spoilt
my life)

of blackberries
and regret

Autumn
falls back through my memories,
ripples of remembrance that ache
in agonising sweetness,
an echo of a time when sunbeams
danced off your face,
in twilight dreams, I walk these streets
of past joys and past pains,
tasting the black cherries from your Cupid
fingers
that stained my lips red, a template for your kiss,
the day I dropped anchor in
your heart

my fingerprints unlock a world

of magic and mystery

when they brush lightly against your spine,

the curve is stunning, ancient architecture

that could take away my breath,

a sacred temple of wisdom lives at its base,

each vertebrae aches with longing

and lust,

but I only feel these things with my fingers,

my heart isn’t in it

I have been

lynched

by love

and sadness

sometimes not knowing the difference

if the difference even matters

I am hanging

by a thread

that is too weak to **** me

but not strong enough to sustain my life

I have eaten rotten fruit

gladly

given into temptation

and now I shall neither die nor life for it

but the thing is

I have never been truly

alive

Do not tempt me

with your red wine lips
and ink black hair,

eyes as dark and mysterious as an ocean
with waves that lap and engulf the shore,

well, I am the shore,
consumed by the sea of your heart,

I beg you not to take me in your arms,
for I could plant my roots in the crook
of your neck,

do not speak to me of love,
for I dare not dream, imagine, feel,

with every fibre of hair on my skin,
that you have shamelessly got under,

do not tempt me with promises,
doused in holy water as they may be,

I can not believe them,
I have been betrayed by forevers before

and I will not let a crack appear
in the lens through which I view you,

so just let me take you into
the ripples of my mind,
the circles of my eyes,

every inch of your flesh and hair,

every smell,
every touch,
every note of your voice,

each cigarette you smoked
over morning coffee,

each whiskey you drank
over midnight musings,

let me see you always,
as I see you now

I have never felt quite as alive

as I do when your handprint covers my heart

containing and calming
its frightened bird beating

to a gentle rhythm of

safe, now

safe

I didn’t ask for forever,

but you spat the word back
in my face like a startled serpent,

as if my carefully calculated movements
spelled out the letters you were too afraid to hear

now, in the wilderness of your heart,

you find the box that contains my face,
and scrub it off, like graffiti,

all because a word echoed in your ear
that was never dared uttered

aloud

I was not born to feel the
endless night

that comes, starless,
bringing to my room a broken moon

I was put on this Earth
to crush leaves beneath my feet
and revel in the changing seasons

to take each one into my mouth
like a ripe fruit

I am here to touch
the brilliant, bright sun

I was born to make Icarus proud

a million stars could not spell the word

love

with the conviction that I feel it

the shadow of a smile in the dark

the brush of your fingerprints on my spine

and your heart, the hook of home

guilt gathers my thoughts to you

it is still -
as a lake in high summer,

no breeze to ripple
the surface of the water,
glistening brilliant blue
under the clear skies reflection,

birds are singing overhead,
I long for their freedom and song,

but then they turn on me,
and peck at these thoughts

until they come apart,

a piñata heart,

split wide - crimson rivers of
holy wine running from my chest

into your cup.

it is your turn, now,

so drink me down,

bleed me dry as I have you,

let me shrivel up and die -

heartless.

like the woman you think I am,

I will do that for you,

I can do that for you,

(at least)

You pour boiling water over
my words and try to wash them away

but, my love, I can’t be erased

I’m in your blood, your bones, your skin

your hair will smell of me

I am a permanent marker
stamped on your heart

claiming you with an
acid burn

(my words were merely pilot fish)

like a lion in winter,
our love is proud,

but its dignity has been
chipped away by challenges,

we had great strength,
but age was not on our side,

we met in the autumn of our lives,
and knew we did not have

forever,

as younger lovers often talk about
so childishly, as if time is merely
there for you to tell it what you want
of it,

no, we knew, we knew

we had little time,

so make the best of it, you said

and we did,

there were no kisses in the rain,
or midnight wine under the stars,

but I think we were happy,

yet now, adversity has ripped us apart
at the seems, and left us threadbare,

no more or less than anyone,
but we didn't weather it well,

all I want is our winter,
to grow old with you,
to die with you,

I think we still have it is us,
I think we will be okay,

but pride is a deadly sin,
so please don't let us
succumb

perfume covers the smoke
tantalising fumes that rise
and then fall
my head, left dizzy
and breathless
as I gasp in the
poisonous air
another night spent
curled around the
wrong reality
dimensions that shift around me
as I move about my day
ink on paper, stripped wood beneath my feet
the foundations of a place that is not tainted
with the harsh cruelties of here
honeysuckle covers the smoke
the sweet root of home
when my heart longs to stay
with pure belonging
and contentment
but it never lasts
and once again i am
forced to wake up
and live in a world
that was never meant
for my multifaceted
heart

I love you,
without question or condition

I hear you,
like hummingbirds in my heart

I see you,
a lone star in a midnight sky

so bright that all the others simply
vanish into the blanket of the universe,

I feel you
when I’m pressing my fingerprints
into your thighs,

passing my identity onto you
so that we can become one,

one flesh
one star
one heart
one love

I am grieving for my past selves

the selves that never made it

fractured fragments longing to be found

pockets of secrets
and black as ink truths
that I have carried with me

forever

and yet, they were tossed aside,
and burnt with the waste,
as if hazardous to continue existing

I grieve for them,
and for myself,

walking around with this
huge hole in my heart,

but I walk on, and mend, as best I can -

bandaids, staples, superglue,

repairing the cracks and yet,
having the courage to weep for what
has caused the wound

Violet skies like Elizabeth’s eyes

we are children of midnight

skipping through moondust

the stars, our breadcrumbs

littered behind us, leading us

home

to the constellation’s root

the beating, burning heart of

the sun

like the ebbing of the tides,
you have rolled away

(from me)

but I know you will creep
back up the beach of my bones,
again

and into my heart

(where you belong)

In your arms

feelings I never dared

dream

your hands

the roots of the Earth

that I plant the seeds

of my lips alongside

and water with kisses

and watch them entwine

and grow

into the blossom of Spring

You said you would die for me,
but dying is easy

I’ve done it every day for years,

stumbling into mornings that move
like treacle,

the night before spent staring blankly
at my computer screen,
or the ceiling,
or the clock,

anything but behind my own eyes,
to the insides of my mind,

dying isn’t being shot in the chest,
or some huge catastrophic event that deafens the world for a moment,

it is small acts of apathy ,
that leave you dizzy and sick,

a kiss that is not returned,
a cold shoulder in the middle
of the night,

so die for me, please,
because I’m tired of killing myself,

trying to love you

it was not difficult to love you,

like an antelope that had
outran a lion

I breathlessly fell into your arms,

safely wrapped up in the
folds of your skin,

complete in that moment
of contentment,

I loved you,

I left the evidence - my fingerprints
on your spine,

tracing my name in
chilli flake fire

rings

where we sat our coffee mugs down
as we watched the rain

fall,

each drop cementing another second
that I would spend by your side,

it was not difficult to love you
as I had never loved anyone,

as I had never loved
myself

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)