we are children of the moon
but the sun is relentless
and we cannot fight
the light

we quiver under its rays
as we frantically drink moonbeams
trying to reflect the heat
back into the sky

as we anxiously await the night
where we can hide and cool
down our skin

with only the gentle stars as
company

I still think of London
every day

those bright and ***** streets

where we held hands
and kissed

stories concealed in concrete

fairytale end seekers

we were no different

but what’s the point in dreaming
and wanderlusting

over city that is now dead
to me

I love you with
my whole heart

but my heart is
fractured

and these broken
pieces

don’t make a
whole

the storm
shakes my
soul

like the roaring
wind shakes
the oak tree

to its roots

its thunder
steals my
heart

like the
waves of the
wild ocean

engulf the
shore

I have known
terror and
rage

and sat hand
in hand with
misery

yet I would
not trade a
single moment

for a still
heart

I wanted falling in love
to be real

but every kiss is just
a step in a dance

we are the players in and
the writers of

our own tragedy

each morning our hands
curl together

like a flower curling it's petals
inwards

away from the sun

what else is there to do?
but play this game

of never knowing the intent
behind each others words

spoken roughly, then gently,
compassionately or loveless

like a wild roulette wheel
of emotion

we could end it, anytime

but instead we will act
it out until we die

turned away from each other
on a bed

the last words said neither
I love you, or I hate you

just deafening silence,
a blank stare of apathy

You are a lighthouse
leading me to shore

when the ocean tries
to consume me

you reach out your hand
and pull me up above

the waves

we will sit in the sand
building castles like children

a thousand pieces of glass
shattered but rebuilt

into palaces that we
can one day call home

there is nothing here
but ashes

and yet we rise
from the dust

building a home
brick by brick

stone by stone

the foundations of our love
our hearts yet to blossom

in full bloom

buds in waiting
flowers in purgatory

but we will unfurl, soon
we will flourish

In summer,
we wait for the green leaves
to turn brown

the rolling motion
of our lives, trapped
in the changing of
the seasons

we wait, we wait

for the crisp mornings to dawn,
and afternoons with hands
wrapped around steaming
mugs of tea

deep conversations
across kitchen tables
at 3am - waiting for the
world to wake

be certain what you
wish for, is not just the end
of that terrible sensation
of prickling heat
on flesh

in my room,
littered with the wrappers of food
I stole and ate in secret

in my body,
unbrushed hair and puffy cheeks
playing a melody of loathing
on my flesh covered bones

in my heart,
wild with longing for excitement
and adventure. Untouched by
human hands, but not by human
words

I am the bitter root
of shame
the twisting torment
of guilt

and I pray every night,
but God closed his ears to me

long ago.

an incomplete life
can be made whole
by love

but a fractured love
can never be made whole
by a full life

work, drugs, money
are pale substitutes
for a welcoming
heart

bitter medicine
for the feel of another’s arms

I am incomplete
and searching for a love

unlike any I have ever known

a love to make me
whole

to be an un -
pinned butterfly

in a world of
constraints

and chains

is to be more
than free

it is to be
miraculous

I have shattered love
every time is was close enough
to touch

my heart, rented out to anyone
who could fill it

just for a second

just for a minute to not  
feel the emptiness

that lingers in the pit of my stomach

like the last leaf of Autumn,
clings desperately to the branch
of a bare tree

but love left no time to linger

it ran like water
between my fingers

until the puddle of heartbreak
was deep enough to drown in

a flower doesn’t shed its petals
merely to be seen naked

it sheds them
to show the other flowers

that it is okay to be
vulnerable

they say the things you lose
come back to you, one day

but I lost them for a reason,
shed my skin like a snake

and if those things find me, again

I’ll ******* burn those bridges
remorselessly, again

when singing failed

I screamed

and the bars of

my cage finally

shattered

into a million pieces

of freedom

like a starved dog
I will devour you
in an instant

without thought
or feeling

and in that instant
I will consume you
as the air consumes
everything around it

I will dissolve into
that air and become
edge -
less

so that where I end
and you begin
is merely a concept
long buried in
the murky swamp

where creation began

we are stardust
scattered across the night
sky

our love as fickle as
midnight

hearts as cold as the
moon

we are all made of
particles

of memory

that can never
reoccur

as poets,
we carved our hearts
out of pencil and
ink,

every drop of feeling
was a metaphor,

every echo of "I love you"
had been written
before,

how on Earth could we
ever learn how to exist
in reality?

for our passions
to become more
than a dance
on a page,

to feel and not knee-
**** into action
over our laptops
at 4am...

but I loved you,
and not for my page
or pen or protagonist,

but for your pencil -
sketched heart

that I dreamt of
filling in red

It’s dangerous to love you,

a fire burning without end,
a sea rising, threatening to
engulf everything I ever
stood for

I am prey to to the voices
in my head, that whisper
in their dizzy innocence
of “love”

but to find it in you
will cause chaos in my heart,
my soul torn in two
as I choose between
the path of devotion
in the face of overwhelming
odds

or the path of
loneliness

*** is not a destination
there is so much more
to see

love is not our destiny
there is so much more
to be

we are forever
falling back
into the ghosts
of who we
were

wrapping our wounds
in our history, as if
the past can heal
as much as it
can hurt

we are never
moving forwards
merely slipping softly
into the patterns
of yesterday

there are differences between
the sea at sunset and
sunrise

one waves away the
sorrow of my
body

and the other weeps
a fateful goodbye

weak, he called me
never knowing that
my weakness
was him

in a fog of fear
and hatred

I rose like a phoenix
and consumed everything
in fire

after the storm,
the sky grows clearer

and

the ocean waves roll over
to a new beginning

there are parts
of myself that
are still in pain

a white hot
thread pulled tight
through my spine

I speak to them,
sometimes

soothe them with
a kindness they have
never known

but they will
always be
fragments

of my soul

that are forever
untouched

tell me
do you miss me
at 4am
when the stars are screaming
and the moon is cold

tell me
do you think of me
when the ocean rolls
across the sand

tell me
did you love me
with your whole, bleeding
heart

tell me
tell me
I need to know

there was heroism in your eyes

that night

as if you had taken the entire ocean
into your lungs

to be sure I did not drown

that you had breathed fire
from your throat

to keep me warm

that you had decoded the secrets
of the stars

just so we could take our place
amongst them

I loved you

with the waves of the ocean
and the flames of the fire

and my heart swelled to hold your hand
in the starlight

memories linger like
fingerprints on my skin

a reflection in the mirror
echoes back to late nights

spent cradling a whiskey
bottle and twirling a brightly

lit cigarette

they whisper in my dreams
haunting the silence with

screams

every moment shadowed
by the ghost of you

if I believed in us

I would fight you
on that final goodbye

plunge my hands
into your chest
and rip out your heart
and beg

you to change
your mind

but I don’t believe in us

not anymore

we are Icarus
we flew to close to
the sun of love

and got burnt

words are power

like “goodbye”

It’s time that I wasn’t
your possession

a coin in your wallet

a doll for you to dress up
and manipulate

into any position you like

I am restless in your collection
of figurines

I crave independence

and a voice
of my own

the ghosts in my head
are taunting me

calling out to me
in the middle of the night

all of my secrets
laid bare

I have tried to exorcise them

but each time
they return

laughing

refusing to leave me
in peace

they will haunt me
until I die

and join them

we still have time

for one more cigarette
over coffee at breakfast

for one more glass of cheap
red wine in the evening

for one more conversation at 4am

for one more kiss at midnight

for one more letter
we’re too afraid to send

we still have time

but the clock is chasing us down
like a reaper

we must be quick
before we don’t have any time

at all

like my midnight dreams
I sleep under the moon
and know the names of each star

when I am awake
the sun burns my skin
and the blue skies drown me

I know I belong to the night

You can pass my heart through
the eye of a needle

it has shrunk so much since you left

I am amazed that it still beats

still pumps blood through
my thankless body

the nightmare of waking back up
to this loneliness, each day

is killing me

and I pray for my heart to shrivel away to

nothing

and cease feeding me

life

I have the power of a God

so what chance do you think
you stand?

when you cheat and lie...

I could break you

slice you in two

the way you’ve sliced my heart

(in two)

but I still love you

so I shall give it all up

just to wake up to your
sleeping face

for one more morning

one more greeting of a fake

“I love you”

My father hated him
at sight

Stolen glances from behind
his crystal whiskey glass

He prefered the last
one

Tall and dark and
strong

A real man

The kind of guy that looks
like he carries photos of
his kids in his wallet

With spare twenties and
condoms

My mother keeps
quiet

I know she liked him
too

But she noticed the bruises
and fat lips

She knows the smell
of pressed powder
over black eyes

I really was her daughter
back then

A broken bone bond
between  her child

She hates that I got
out

That I refused to carry
on their name

She looks at the new guy
whose arms hang over my shoulders

My father smokes cigars
and sighs

Trying to work out if his hands
could make fists

If his knuckles could
smash against my skull

He can't stand to see me
with a man who lets me answer back

A man who gives me his coat
when it's cold

He likes to see a mirror
reflecting back his
brutality

Telling him that his daughter
is safe (in a way) from
the wolves that walk the pages
of fairy tales

It's that time of year again,

The air is warm,
breathing delicate
wisps of breeze
across my skin

I was cold
inside my heart,
shrank and barely
beating

My head is my own
theatre, frames flashed
and frozen, projecting
every still

I try to put the ghosts
to rest, bury them like
bones in a garden

But they wake up,
like vampires,
when the sun sets

Words catch in
my throat, lungs
take in their fill
of air, but there's
not enough oxygen

To feed my brain.

like a depraved, wild thing
I ripped my heart from my chest
and slammed it on the floor

“there!”
I said!

do your ******* worst

for I am no longer tied
to all that once kept me alive

I will rise from the dirt
like a sunflower

growing, growing, reaching
for the light

when I yell at you to leave
I am desperately hoping that
you’ll hear the shaking cries of “stay”
hidden beneath my scream

when I pick you up on
every
little
thing

please know that I am only
scrutinising myself over every
mistake
I’ve
ever
made

when I ignore you for days
please know that it is because
I am too busy speaking to the
anxiety that calls myself
her friend

know that I don’t hate you
that I only hate myself

The only beautiful thing I have ever seen

is the reflection of my eyes in yours

(and you broke the mirror)

seven years bad luck

(for both of us)

Love is a language
my head cannot translate

I have studied it for years
and still I do not understand

phrases and words
that would make other peoples
hearts dance and sing

kisses on the cheek
seem alien and obscene

I know I am crushing
a part of myself through
my failure to grasp

what the person standing
before me is saying

their eyes wide and wet

but my throat is dry,
and I cannot hold a conversation

in this strange language they call love

and maybe one day you will see

that I was standing here all along

waiting

waiting

waiting

I will **** you if I have to

to bury any evidence that I
once loved you

and God, I think it would be easy

to take a knife into your heart,
and twist it

as you twisted one into mine

I was fooled by your lies,
gentle tricks of the tongue
that came so easily to you

how I hate to be associated
with your wicked words

and to see the mouth
that uttered them, alive

Lord knows it would be easy

to drive a stake into your heart
and **** the vampire that ****** me dry

she was born
with starlight in her eyes

but could not see it
until he looked into them

we were bodies on the ground
decomposing into the earth
into the soil where roots are planted
that grow and bloom and blossom
back into life

I curse the thunder
that tore us apart

I am drowning in the storm

the rain runs cold,
right down to my bones

you used to be my anchor
but now you’re just a ghost

haunting my heart

I’m walking through a dark forest

trees caging me in
with their branches

it is the forest of my heart

beaten and bruised
until there is nothing left

but a small red *****
that anyone can hold in their hand

and destroy further

branches like bars
and trunks like locks

the forest is unforgiving

but I must walk through it
every night

in order to reach daylight

I have shattered the bars of love
that have caged me all my life

each lover burning scars into my heart

their promises of love shining
like stars in my eyes

their gentle words of kindness
like a noose around my neck

and I hung myself with that rope

every time
another came into my life

but no longer will I be confined
by fake words

and fraudulent hearts

I will stand on my own two feet
and thrive like a root planted
in the ground

blooming into something
beautiful