We were the graveyard girls
gorging on lost souls and bones

But our highest prize….

…we wanted to taste Death.

To bite into his flesh, and hallucinate his prey,
to let his blood trickle on our tongues, red as a brilliant, untouched ruby

We wanted to see if it would -
by some twist of supernatural law - make us immortal

(or infamous)

time slows down
or speeds up

relative to how
fast you move

against
something
else

hurling into
the vast loneliness
of space

at the speed
of light

your heart
trapped in
aluminum

ages far
slower than
mine

gravity
bending
time

twisting
the narrative
of our love

so that one
of us grows
old

apart from the
other,

helplessly watching

a promised lifetime
blowing up

above the cheers
and screams

of a crowd

I walk
this Earth
like a ghost
hand in hand
with shadows
and spectres
the yellow seas
eaten by industry
are the solution
to my thirst
the apples of
Thalidomide trees
the only answer
to my hollowed
belly hunger
I dare not stray
from the
undercity
of drug
stors and
disease
It is my home, now
as much as
anywhere is
I fester like
a great root,
planted, anchored, growing
from the dirt
of misery

The cavities of my heart

fill

at the touch of your mercury fingers

years of decay are repaired

by the amalgamation
of sweet whispers and fierce flesh

strokes

writing your name on my back

claiming me as your

protected

we thought our love was bullet proof

like the glass of the prisons
we have put ourselves in

uncaged- we roam
the streets of passion and consequence

darting between fear and love
so easily, as if it were our natural state

our natural form, now alien
to our bitter bones

we carve our niche
sit on the anchor of our own
intolerance to change

we are not bullet proof
we are a paper house

caught in the chaos of the
earthquake

Heartless, they call me,
a silver dagger plunged
and twisted
into a red hot
*****,
knives severing arteries
and veins until I
unravel like dropped
wool,
my blood cells fighting
the infection of close contact
with a society
that would not stand
for me,
heartless isn't born,
it grows in the space
between love and hate,
blooms out of the dark soil
the seeds of shame and blame,
thrives when it's locked away
in a (rib) cage, behind bars
like a circus freak,
sometimes, I long to feel
but then I hear of heartbreak,
heartsickness, and I am glad that mine
does not beat...

glass clouds gather

and I can see straight through

the sky

straight to the core of

the sun

straight to the centre

of you

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

Our fingers searched

Like foxes rummaging through

Bags of trash

A cigarette packet

An empty Jack

bottle

I think we kissed in the dark

Before tonight

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

we are creatures of habit,
using the same coffee cups,
and sharing the same broken dreams
in the morning

you’ve smoked the same brand of cigarettes
for five years,
and their traces linger on my flesh
like fingerprints

routines keep us safe, you say,
but I don’t want to be safe

I want to be wild,
running barefoot under the moon

I want to be reckless,
dancing with you in a thunderstorm

I want to be passionate,
to kiss you for longer than you
can hold your breath

to **** you with a longing that’s been burning
for five years

to kiss the very life out of you

and in that moment
I saw infinity
reflected in the eye
of a mermaid
who had swam
to shore
to sing your name

seaweed haired girl
you carry the ocean
in the pocket of
your heart

and in mine
sweet and ripe
as strawberries
I carry
salt kissed kisses
the centre of
our love

How fast does the sun set
when no one is watching?

burnt orange skies that sink
like pebbles in a gently ebbing river

if no one bares witness
to the miracle of day’s end

does it happen?

or is all illusion and pink lies
told by the sunrise

lost souls,
they called us

but we weren’t

we were just navigating the
impossible

walking with splintered spines
on quicksand

but our hearts had found themselves
thrown together in the chaos

we used each other’s eyes
for mirrors

as reflections of our
souls

I am like fire,
burning through the
memory of you

every moment will
be ashes, the ashes
soon dust

you will not destroy me,
for I hold the flame that
burns as bright as star -
light, that annihilates
trauma and pain

do you think for a second,
that I will think of you? When
I am picking stardust out
of my hair

do you think you will matter
to me? When my memory
of you, is merely smoke
in the air

I have come this far,
across the hills of my hometown.
I took my boots off thirty miles ago
and have been roaming barefoot
like a feral thing.
In the distance I saw you, sitting on the porch,
as I grew closer I saw you were smoking
French cigarettes and listening to Cohen.
You stood up to meet me and
before you could speak,
before you could kiss me...

I have never had much luck with men
no, I do not **** the way they like it
my hair is ***** blonde, almost brown
my stomach is round

I do not want your love out of pity, or curiosity
but I love you enough to stop wandering
to wave away the mountains
to drain out the oceans

I will mould myself into the shape of you
so that when we're apart there is an
impression of the other on our flesh

I'll learn to ****, learn to love to ****
bruised memories will heal when your
sweat drenched hand slides down my glistening back

I will love you to your burnt orange core

Fallen -
like Lucifer
we find ourselves a new home

scolding -
we toast marshmallows in the the flames
let them lick our feet

burn our hair
until the smell makes us
faint

for you,
and only you

I take tea in the fires of Hell

Ants
crawl over my skin
at night

biting into my flesh
******* blood until I am lying

pale and motionless
too weak to reach out a hand

yet, who would help me?

no one came, then
why would they now

they would rather see me smothered
by invisible hands
thighs left bruised by invisible fingers

too ashamed to speak it’s name
too ashamed to look

all you have the guts to do is
turn your face away
and pray

“Please, next time God, not me…”

I drunk love you,

when my eyes are blurred by beer
and your face is out of focus,

I drunk love you,

with the burning urge to bare my soul
to you at 1am, by text,

I drunk love you because
it’s numb love,

I can say what I want to you,
and not remember it in the morning,

take your mouth into mine
whilst waiting for a cab

and forget the taste of your lips
as soon as it drives away,

I drunk love you,

because the steel bars surrounding
my heart keep you out

the ones that soften and give way
when faced with sober love

Our love is fierce
and fearless

it blazes like the sun
and shimmers like the stars

our hearts are volcanoes
on the verge of erupting

lava that will spread
and cover the Earth

in our red hot
affection

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

I have been waiting for my demons to
mould themselves around your heart

to sink their teeth into your soul

so that you may bliss me with the kind of absolution I have been craving

since before I was old enough to drink

but I have learnt that shedding my scarred skin
so that it may become your

skin

is not only selfish of me
but will also strip me to the bare bones

shaking spine and clavicle

so that there will ultimately be nothing left of me
to see

black mist falls
like night
and it is always night

(here)

where the shadows dance
and ghosts play poker
with my heart

I am not in control
of my mind

(you see)

I am its player
acting out a scene of smiles
when all is sorrow

(inside)

I am infinite as the universe,

I am marked by fire, stars
burning on my body, their
light bouncing off me as the
foam rises off the surface of
the waves that sweep across
the ocean

I have broken up with God,
skyless and without faith
tying me, rooted to the
spot with shame

I have shattered the bars
of pain, the cage that surrounded
my heart, bust open

I am blooming as the tulips
bloom in April, blossoming
from green stems into a
carpet or purple and red

cageless, Godless, shackles loose

I am infinite

At five, we dragged
sticks along railings
and walls

holding hands
carelessly, obliviously,
without knowing we
were linking our
hearts forever

then we were ten,
twenty, forty...

the years doubled
then doubled
again

we're eighty

milk white hands
like chalk

ice palm meeting
ice palm

yet still
we smile,
faces cracked
and

careless

We smoke cigarettes together
on cold beaches

smoke curling around our fingers
and hovering for a second
like a peace offering

the ocean is gigantic
and we cannot begin to
understand it
like we cannot begin
to understand our hearts

but they both beat
to the rhythm of
an almightier drum
and we will learn
what it means, in time, dear
we will learn

You shatter
the silence
with your
smile

I run my fingers
down your
smooth bank

no imperfections
just imprints
of a lover’s
gentle touch

I hold my
head to the
side

when I
think of
you

and try to
curve my lips
into the
memory of
us

Damaged girl, they say,
so damaged girl, I act,

don’t touch me,
for my fingers are fire,
and I will not hesitate to burn you to the ground,

don’t love me,
for my heart is a serpent that will
land a poisonous bite in your neck,
and I will not flinch, but look on,

damaged girl,
damaged goods,
unworthy of touch,
unworthy of love,

but do not mistake my tone for self pity,

for I am happy
burning my way through men,
as they have burnt their way through me

revenge is a flame on the flesh of one
who reminds you of your enemy

and a snake bite, in the neck of your abuser

I love you like the planet that is nameless,
yet to be discovered in an ocean of stars,
I could pace an empty beach, howling at the moon
to answer me and it would echo back my cries

I love you like the tree that is branchless,
arms that can never reach out and touch you,
leaves that can never fall at your feet like love
letters, carrying the song of my soul

I love you like the river that is cut off before
it reaches the sea, never finding it's home,
or it's place in the vastness of the Earth

I love you like a wild thing, an injured heart
desperate to be healed

When I close my eyes
I see the beach where we once sat,
drinking wine and sharing cigarettes,
we watched the waves crash over
the sand, imagining that one day,
we would own a cottage on the coast,
we were could listen to
the ocean each night,
as we snuggled warm under blankets,
now we are cold and distant,
and no amount of dreaming
will bring the fire back into
our hearts, we are over
and it hurts to remember
those careless, wasted days,
where we could have done
so much instead of just
waiting

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

If there was some amazing
force of nature
twist of fate
that could bring us back
to that night
where we held hands on an open beach
the ocean wide mouthed and hungry
devouring minutes until morning
the sand twisting like time beneath our feet
there were only secrets and whiskey
and our hands
classed so tightly
fighting off daylight

The ocean roars around us

and in it I hear the call of the deity
who sent you to me

begging me to trust you beyond
trust’s breaking point

emplourinig me to take your hand in mine
and twist our fingers into patters
to shadow against the midnight sky

and I will, I will, hold on

let the waves crash at our bare feet
and walk away from this beach,
entwined in your spine

believing
believing
believing

in the Goddess of you

I ask the moon to light up
your footprints

as if I could follow the trail home
with moonbeam shining on my face

but that great, silver sphere
holds no clues

and stardust can only sustain me
for so long

I eat scraps of midnight
but my hunger for you

burns more fiercely
than the oncoming sun

It was a plague passed
through kisses, I never
thought it would ****
me, but I woke up
one day, dead limbed
and deaf to everything
except the sound
of waves crashing against
the peaks of my heart,
and I couldn't move
without you

(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

I live
inside these bones
a memory that rises
and grows in the vast
cavity of my chest

my heart ripped
our, now clenched
in the jaws
of a ravenous
wolf

it’s teeth tasting
blood, my blood,
as if it’s ageless
as if it has the
power to sustain
anything except

myself

I used to think
angels were
a symbol
of protection

of hope
and light
and peace

but I have seen
angels with teeth
bared like
wolves

hungry for blood
(my blood)
and willing to rip
flesh from
bone

in their desperate
primal urge

I have seen angels
walk me into
a busy road
of traffic

and have me
lay on the
concrete

I have seen angels
pour “just one
more”

drink down
my throat

no, angels
do not
protect you

when they are
the manifestation
of your
nightmares

I am something of a stalagmite these days
ice has grown from where the water
has seeped through the cracks
of the cave of my bones,
growing ever more solid
with the advance of winter

You sing songs from the dead sea,
echoes of long forgotten love
that burst like starlight,
scattered across a black sky,

I press your heart against my lips,
taste it’s bitter root of anger,
a spark of light that hit a shard
of glass, in the reckless summer heat

we are faithless, you and me,
yet still we believe in each other

I miss you in my heart
even if my mind is screaming at me
to run from the fire before
I go up in flames

I do not know how to
deny you anything

except my heart

I keep it locked inside my chest
like treasure

wrapped tight in veins
and arteritis

caged by bones
as strong as steel

it will take a braver man than you
to smash through

the layers of my chest
and break it

I have broken the bars
and shackles of
faith

in a world
where repentance
is everywhere

and the fear
of God makes
prisoners of
us all

as the sunflowers wilted,

I felt a spike pierce my heart,

loaded with regret
and memories

of walking barefoot
through those fields with you,

chasing the sun as it
inevitably ran faster than we could

our feet, grass stained green

the promise of love, in full bloom,

as I turned my face away
from those dying flowers,
into the crook of your neck,

you sighed, whispered

“their seeds shall grow again

next spring,

and our love can
withstand the winter”

The universe is vast and gray and infinite,
how do I take my place
in it?

how do I stand,
with my heart beating out
the rhythm of my life,
singing my past in
a simplicity so un -
becoming of it

I want to shout into the void -
I have come, I am woman,
flesh and bone, scars and stories,
I have known a taste of your
treachery and still
I stand before you

I  am Godless,
I shattered brick and mortar
metal and bars,
to be free of the weight
of heaven on my heart

oh universe, I am standing here,
at your open mouth,
a mouse in front of a lion

please acknowledge me

We sit
fingers wrapped tightly
around each other
as the sky falls in
around us

but it’s okay
because we hold stars
in the palm of our hands

and taste moon dust
on our tongues

who needs the sky
when we are complete
in a midnight moment

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

I am forever treading on the footprints
I have left, on the paths
I have already walked,

leaving breadcrumbs behind me,
as I navigate the impossible forest
of life,

at dusk, my shoes shine like diamonds,
as they retrace every step
that leads me home, and back

to you

Our names burn in the sky,
each tiny act of love crafted
into stars

constellations that paint
maps for travellers
to follow

our hearts a guide
for wanderers

I loved you as the first cigarette
burnt down between your
fingers

flicking ashes without
caring where they fell

lust consumed me like the sun
will one day swallow us
all

and now we are wild
fire, raging across
the night

The play of my life
has no intermission
no break in the drama
no pause to catch my breath

On and on and on
the show loops
in my head
nightmares return
night after night

The scenery doesn’t change
the walls of the set, closing in on me
everything I touch is just a prop
fake cigarettes and alcohol free beer

I wait for my death scene
my heart racing with anticipation
for my exit, stage left
but I weep in the knowledge
that my final breath will be just an act

and there is no escaping this plot