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

a candle reflected
in the mirror

echoes of spells
and rituals

conjuring love

overpowering each one
of my senses

the brightest light
glimmering in
my eyes

the softest touch
waking up
my skin

the rustle of tarot
cards being shuffled

a whispered promise

I can almost taste you

windswept hair -

we drove until our eyes bled

from the hurricane of love

that came to us

when the mountains wept

and the sky glittered diamonds

on our daisy chain hearts

the stars shaking in their chambers

of midnight blue

there was us, my love

at the end of the yellow brick road

there is quivering love

bloodsucker
night terror
ghosts that haunt the sheets
I sleep under

black heart
bleeding ink
desperate to write, but the words
won’t cut loose from my throat

black cloud
black dog
biting
teeth bared, ready to taste blood

I sink deeper into misery
looking for a hand
to pull me out of this ocean
of despair

My eyes scan the empty night

stars burn my soul,
exposing the core of me

the darkness and light
that contrast in an infinite paradox,
that my mind cannot always bare

the moon picks my heart, like a flower
and treats it with a fragility it isn’t used too

my heart and soul now belong
to the endless night

and I feel a calmness I have not felt in years
knowing I am now a child of the universe

They brought you back from the lake
draped in lilies

their scent so strong I thought I might pass out
and relish in a few brief moments of serenity

before the grief hits me like I’ve ran
into a cliff face

you no longer have to pray for
snatched moments
of peace

for you have stolen a lifetime
of tranquility
from me

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

It stuck to us like glue

to our shoes
in our hair

we applied a chemical peel
that we hoped would

erase the taint of the past
on our skin

but the past evolved
with each step we took away from it

until it was a barred toothed wolf
with metal claws

to tear at and devour us

fight, flight, freeze

but if only there was more to life
than a ******* F word

I don’t want to be a lady;

I want to touch the sun
with my bare hands
and consume it’s fire

I want to shoot arrows
at injustice
like a deadly archer

I want to pick the stars
from the sky and threaten
the whole world with darkness

I’m not interested in being nice
when the world is burning
around me

I hear voices -
that is to say a voice
that is not by own,
but a strangers

(no longer a stranger, now,
a friend, an enemy, a curse)

he licks my brain
with his wet tongue
whispering morbid
fantasies of death
and destruction

he is a wolf
to which I am
his meat - he plays
with me - toys with
me

drags me across
the floor, my blood
trailing behind,

I wake up to his
howls, peaking through
my window at the moon,

(I know moonlight well, these days)

I don't sleep that much,
his voice eating away
at my flesh, my bones
left brittles and shaking
in their shell,

I do as he commands,
eat the red fruit, don't step
on the cracks. Don't trust them!
THEY ARE SPIES!!!

he takes me whole into
his mouth, twisting me
around his tongue like
half forgotten words,

savouring his demands
for blood, that I have obliged
with the flick of a knife,

then, at last, devours me

I do not ask you to stay
with my eyes
with tears and looks of desperation

I do not as you to stay
with my hands
fingers clinging to you, half possessed

I don’t even ask you to stay
with my heart
hoping beyond hope that the beat
of my pulse will guide you home

No.

I ask you to stay with the stars
to look at our names, that have long burnt
in the midnight sky

they burn inside me now
I am consumed by the blaze
and I know that you are feeling
as cold as the moon towards me
but a little ice would put the fire out

and maybe there is hope
when fire and ice collide

daydreams

you woke me from

with wine soaked kisses
and sugar soft touches

fingers, painting our initials on my back

my spine a canvas for the heartsick
artist

and his muse

forsaking their hearts for an age old tale
locked together in a common fantasy

that this is what love looks like

we lay on a damp patch of grass on the hill,
as close as we can get to touching the sky

we’ve set our 90’s plastic all digital watches
and we are waiting for the

stars to open their centres and

breathe

magic into our souls

just one kiss that leaves a trace of stardust

on my lips

this is not our last chance
but the calendar is flicking fast
and one day soon
it will be

so let’s have one night of magic and madness
dancing barefoot under moonbeams

because tomorrow may come, but it won’t be sprinkled in stardust

like you and I are, tonight

We dive
headfirst

into the abyss
of each other’s

hearts

hoping to find a spark
that life can grow from

hoping the find fractures
of love

that we can build a home
from

but all is darkness and doubt
neither trusting the other as friend

they would rather implode
into nothingness

than take the leap of love’s
faith

In the corner of your eye
I see a tear

that takes me to the heart
of the ocean

the roar of the waves
shaking my ears

in a desperate cry
to be heard

darling, I hear you

your head folded into my neck
like a paper aeroplane

our lips meeting
passing nectar that restores

even the frailest, weakest of men
from the brink of

their hollow, lonely death

you are in my arms
and there is nothing left to fear

but the fear
of fearing to love

You are the key
he said,

but my heart
is not

the lock

tick

tock

stop

There’s no crueller word
than goodbye

Until it’s accompanied
by the whys

I drank from your cup of love
like a child, idle with thirst,

the taste of forever swirled in my throat,

words that once formed there,
turned to white foam at the corners
of my mouth,

my heart sank deeper into my chest
at your fickle touch,

cemented there, caged there,

and I knew I would never be free
from this reckless lover’s command

I would follow wherever it lead,
happily

wild with longing and
that first promised taste of

forever

like Alice,

we seek to find keys to rooms
that we do not know what mysteries lie behind

to mould ourselves to fit the openings
of terrors and temptations

to contort ourselves into a place
of ecstasy and enlightenment

can there really be anything more thrilling in live

that standing in front of a lock
hands shaking in anticipation,
not knowing how you will open it
but swearing to yourself that you will find a way

because one day,
one way, one lock, one key, one door

might lead you home

I believed you every time
like a child might believe that they're safe

(untouchable)

as long as their parents are
in sight

But I am no longer a child

(because of you)

and I should have learnt by now
that I can't stem the tide's consumption
of everything we've built

(our glass grain castle)

with a memory of a kinder time
and a polaroid

You unpicked my heart
like you picked your guitar

each string of my lifeblood
wound around your fingers

each beat of my dreams
pulsing against your palm

each dizzying rush of blood
to my head, the drug that fed me  

until I didn’t know who I was
anymore,

without you

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

A kiss that stitched my lips

A touch that burnt and bruised

A fist that shattered my faith

My hope ground to dust

I put all my trust in a

Devil

So I’ll take the life you took from

Me

On my own terms this time

How can I run from your ghost

Time blurs my memories until I don’t even know

Myself

I invite you into the room of fire and Hell

That will stay in the corner of my mind

Until the day I die

Stars know the secrets that I bury
in daylight

seeping through their cages at
midnight

they’re stardust now
scattered across the night sky

all the words I swallowed down so deep
afraid to ever give them a voice

and I finally see that they are not dark
and shameful

but beautiful

so thank you, stars
for taking the darkest parts of my soul
and giving them light
giving them a space in the infinite sky

for allowing me to see that I need not hold words in my throat till they burn

they can burn bright in the sky
instead

My hearts skips beats

aching for the days that were

carefree and frivolous

when my smile was genuine and my eyes

sparkled with life

I know there is no going back

that the journey of life does not come with

a rewind button, or even a pause

to take in the evening air

and breathe the sunset into my lungs

so that I may expel beautiful colours

come morning

I am
sleeping in the
graveyard
where I buried
you

living in a
body without
a heart that’s
whole

breathing with lungs
coated in the tar from
your cigarettes

a constant memory
of you, taking me back
with every exhale

I said goodbye
yet still, you live
inside of me

in every *****
and drop of
blood

on every inch
of skin, each
hair

your grave
swarms as your
bones reform

and I cannot
rest in
peace

His fingers were too long,
patched with nicotine stains
and traces of my DNA

I gave him that small
part if myself, a tiny scrap
of evidence he could keep

He knew that I'd send
no-one looking for it

I knew he'd want to
remember me

He knew I'd have
no choice

He left bits of himself
in my hair

drandruff flecks

On the hip of my jeans
there are snowflakes

Droplets of ice
that have frozen
and expanded over
time

They've spread like
the thread of a silkworm

Tying me to the night
we met

you smell of cigarettes
and brandy,
and I breathe it down
as if it is the purest air
I have ever known,

my nose bleeds, eventually,
and yet I do not blame you,

for in your eyes I see
the fire in my own,
the fury and rage that longs
to burn down buildings that have
stood tall for hundreds of years,

out of spite and jealously,
that our passion will barely last
a hundred seconds

this heart of porcelain

vitrified by your gentle hands

I am delicate, you said

like an unplucked flower

I am just waiting to be

smashed, picked, broken

and you would stand in the smithereens

and cry

over a ruined masterpiece

but shed no tears

over the girl who sacrificed her heart

for your art

You pick apart
the days we've shared
as is if they are cotton threads on a shirt,
analysing each moment
to see where we went wrong,

examining what you believe
to be the facts, when love
can't be understood by
facts.

What about the feelings
we shared? or the kisses?
do these things matter less
than a ten minute taxi ride
or a possible wrong turn
in the woods?

Why are you so cold?
so utterly distant from your heart?
as if it doesn't live in your own chest at all,
but in another body entirely,

maybe that is why I could never reach it
maybe that is why our relationship
will be eliminated to nothing,
after your deductions

Let me see with eyes that have
never seen the stars in the sky

show me a map of the constellations
so that I may know the beauty I am missing

and weep

I long to feel the craters of the moon
in exchange for never seeing its phases

why can’t I touch the sky!?
my fingers are itching with anticipation
a shard of my heart has been torn out
my eyes grow heavy and close

as I realise that this world
is not meant for me to see

I do not want my heart to burn with longing,
for this love to be a fire that roars when our fingers touch,
our lungs shrinking, our coughs and splutters
mixing in the air

I just want to feel warm.

We are all tiny pebbles
dropped into a river
making ripples that
will eventually reach
the ocean

How rare now,
is this touch of gold?

this majesty of purple tulips that tap out
love’s fingers

stretching,
like a babes arm towards it’s mother

mighty in feeling
this one second,

stopped on a watch
as if smashed in a murderous fall,

and in knowing,
that nothing lasts forever,

not even the taste of stardust
on lover’s lips

I have spent the hours of our love
listening to the waves crash against the shore
beating on my bedroom window, at night,
drinking tea from chipped cups
made with sour milk,
I longed for more,
I wanted to stretch my arms out
and devour the ocean,
let it’s power fill me with the strength
to walk away.
from only ever hearing the sound of the sea
through frosted glass,
and drinking tea that curdled in my stomach,
like my love for you has curdled,
I want the salt water of the wild ocean
to cleanse this bitter taste from my mouth,
let it consume me for it is all I want
to ride a wave away from this stagnant life

I am just
trying to
find my
way home

when all the
breadcrumbs
have been
eaten

by crows

If you understand the beauty
of a sunset, then please tell me
how it works
for the flaming oranges and reds
just remind me of the fire I’ve been
running from my whole life

the flames constantly licking my heels
as I try to propel myself
further
faster

I know it will catch me up
one day, and engulf me
in the past I’ve spent
every ounce of energy I have
trying to forget
I know it will burn me
mark me, scar me

but I hope I will douse
the fire down, and walk
free once the pain passes
and maybe then, we can
share the beauty of
a sunset

It's getting harder to believe
that this crack in the wall
is not, in fact, a gateway
to another universe

you stand beside it
beckoning, sweetly
smiling, and you know
that I would walk hot coals
to follow you,

what is a crack in the damm?

Twig by twig
we built our home
like birds

in the winter
we froze
together in a
raindrop

our faces
suspended forever
inside a tear

branches sway
in the breeze and
we fight

to remain

here

in the air

where we can
refrigerate
our hearts

pretending not to
feel the wind
ripping our skin
apart

and the rot
that grows
in the cracks

Eighteen ways to say I love you
that shatter like ice in my throat:

the bread I used to bake with
my grandmother, her ancient hands
kneading violently as if years of pent
up frustration could be baked and sliced
in one loaf.

I did not know how to say “I love you”
and mean it. Only how to shape dough
in ways that implied it. My mother would
watch from the kitchen table, and I
would wonder if she’d ever said it.

We do not make our passions known,
our feelings other people’s concern.
So we bake, or plant flowers and trees.
We make our love visual and growing.
We make it alive.

Bounced

a mother figure
to two, a name
on a Christmas card
to four

when I realised
I was still a
child

and bitterness
wasn't an
option

I grew up
like a broken
nose

out of joint

Bounced

at the service
there are tears
beside me

I imagine a
body burning
and feel
warm

the lick of flames
on gray skin

my indifference
grows like I
imagine the
fire roaring

behind the curtain

heating up

Bounced

the house is
empty and
smells

unusual

like something has
been left in there
too long

they are not
there now but
it lingers

I tried to take
her dresses but
she was thinner
as a girl than
I am now

jealously

is a feeling
I'm familiar with

and it's easier
to understand

Bounced

we are waiting
for a buyer

and I imagine
how it feels
to have a piece
of your heart
trapped in bricks
and mortar

Bounced

one time,
I wanted to ask her
how it felt to
take notes of
the war

if she'd ever thought
of waving a white
flag and crumbling

drowning in the
rubble rain of
The Blitz

I wanted to hear
her say something
human

so I could
visualise and
see a bit of
her in myself

Bounced

I'm still caught up
on the autopsy
like a piece of
fatty tissue on
a scalpel

and my thoughts
are metal and
cold

the number of
zeroes on a
cheque

Bounced

my cure and my curse

wrapped in one flesh

whose fingers flicker lightly down my back

until I beg for moonlight

to conceal the shame of this moment

I stand a monument of your prosperity

but I am really just a fool who cannot

say no

If this is all there is
if this is all that can be saved
then I want you to know that I’m sorry

I’m sorry for holding your heart in my hand,
and promising to protect it,
when I knew I would fail you

I’m sorry for staring into your eyes,
as if they held the entire ocean,
mysterious and deep in thought
that I could not understand

I’m sorry for being, existing, pulsing
in your life, like a poison in your veins

I’m sorry is the bottom line,
and I will beg you to believe that
until my dying breath

you come the me now

as a butterfly

fragile winged thing

it is cruel that you die in a day

and I can’t even hold on to

your reincarnation

grief stirred endlessly

in a cycle

but I will take this daily torment

over never seeing you again

feelings are in flux,
the constant motion
of a wheel turning
in my mind

I do not know
when I wake
what number
the hand on
this endless clock
will be pointing to

I feel like a ghost
walking the Earth,
as if I woke up
one day and left
my body behind me

am I really alive?
was I ever really alive?

We pick at
the stitches of
time, as if they
will come lose
in our fingers
if we just pull
hard enough,
but there is
strength in
wounded souls
that shatters
glass as if it
is made of
sugar paper

Sadness lines these walls
the way that dust
lines the corners
of books you bought
when you had a
hunger for words,

now, the act of reading
them, smooth
as their covers,
effortlessly slipping
through your mind,

I am not my sadness,
I say, over and over
like a heartbeat,
a belief so vital
to my life as
the clenching of
that *****

and yet
and yet

I am sad

How do we go from surviving
to thriving?

to plunge our hands
into the heart of darkness
and twist it into light

to learn to bloom into a rose
from a rotten seed

I long to sing stardust from my lungs
and scatter the sky with diamonds

but I must learn how to live, first

to live and not exist

Suffering is an art form

Like everything I have ever done
I have mastered it

The slow murmur of movement
Dogged by depression

The hummingbird’s frantic song
Of anxiety

The drifting of days marked only
By the ticking of a broken watch

I am war
And famine
And disease

For as long as I have breathed air
It has been poisonous

A toxic oxygen

I have learnt the art of dying
Without death

The finality of it never quite succeeding
The motion of my desire for it

I want to purge my body of the filth
That has been inflicted on it

Trauma that seems impossible to carry
On my shoulders

I am a tree grown from a bitter root
Planted into the ground as an afterthought

My braches twisted, leaves that will never know
The brilliant colours of autumn

But I stand, still
Weathered and beaten and broken

Still, I stand

After she died,

I would sit in the kitchen
For hours

Kneading bread
Into the bones
Of her

I thought she wasn't
Looking

Or couldn't see

But a part of me
Felt sure
She could still
Smell

The air
Sweet with
Honey

And
Rise
Again

Like flour