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

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

sweet whispers of nothingness

in the midnight blue chasm of my heart

I reach out for you -

fingers contorted with rage and wonder

gasping for that final touch

that you have denied me

another black coffee at 2am

willing myself awake
when I can’t sleep

it is in the whisperings
of the stars

that I hear my name,
spoken softly

not in your voice

no, not in your voice

(anymore)

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

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

You tried to clip my wings,
pin me through the spine
like a prize butterfly

but I learnt how to fly
and say goodbye

to you

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

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

May the space between
where I am when I’m
alone

and where I am when I’m
with you

be the ground in which
we can plant the seeds

of forgiveness

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

Rising from the dead lilies
of your forgiveness

blood on my knees and mud in my hair

the eery calm of plucked daffodils

yellow stains on my fingers
that I can’t remember where they came from

except the shower of petals at my feet
giving away my crime

I do not forgive you

I want to destroy your peony soul
with acid rain

I am bitter like the month of February

biting frost
chilling wind
freezing rain

I am all extremes
and you can eat the dirt of your sorry

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

I learn from the love letters

I find hidden under the floorboards
of an ancient house

the paper yellowed, ink faded, but still…
fierce traces of passion and longing trapped
in their pages

they teach me fidelity,
when it is the last thing I want to know

they teach me kindness,
when cruelty is the mistress of my heart

they teach me that love can survive overwhelming odds

and so when I fold them up up and replace them
knowing I shall probably be the last to hold
these letters, that speak of beautiful courage
and compassion

I walk out of that ruined house,
whole and healed

ready to open my heart
to love

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

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

hearts beating,
black blood

limbs twisted together wildly,
like contortionists

fingers gripping onto fingers,
like icicles

something beautiful,
made obscene

we are a mere echo of love

Show me your heart

and I will show you my world

that pulsing *****

those bulging veins and arteries

each one a map that lead me back

home

sitting with my hand clasped in yours

empty beer bottles at our feet

and the sweet taste of belonging

on our tongues

whispering ghosts keep me up at night

begging for me to join their chorus

not knowing that I am meant to be

solid flesh and bone

for wolves to devour

in their manic blood thirst

hunger for fresh meat

I am meant to die

at the hands of wild things

as I have lived

myself

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

After the rain fell
I fell sunshine trickle through my body

it’s yellow mouth swallowing me
whole

I became -

reckless

with secrets, with the hearts that
beat inside an other

I was released from the suffering
of a slow death my drowning

and I didn’t care who
felt the blunt
of it

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.

to be an un -
pinned butterfly

in a world of
constraints

and chains

is to be more
than free

it is to be
miraculous

She is eight
standing on the top step
staring at the stars
twinkling with the promise
of a new year

eyes now closed,
she drinks them in
lets the ***** of fire
warm her, the heat
of the flames burn
into her heart

in her head
a voice whispers
'make a wish'

without moving her lips
she swallows the
freezing darkness,
the air

M
A
K
E

M
E

T
H
I
N

she expels
the letters
like smoke
rings

let my hands
shake and bend
like dead twigs
in the breeze

my eyes to
retreat back
to safety

into secrets

my chest to shake
like a spider
undet a glass
trapped but safe
contained

'Please eat away this flesh'

She is eighteen now
and the years have changed her

yet not tamed the whisper
that beats like sea water
crashing into the rocks
that guard her thoughts

sitting rigid
on a hard red sofa
trying to keep her eyes dry

she watches the screen
that stands between her
and the rest of
the world

the only stars tonight
are the ones bouncing
off the glass

there is no air in here
with the three of us
eating the only thing
we still can

Christmas decorations
still standing and
watching, catching
the dust that's like
the splatter of cereal
over a breakfast bowl

we are supposed to be
in bed by eleven
with someone coming in,
a dark shadow, checking
that the windows are shut

but tonight
we are allowed to pretend
that we are part of this
world, beyond the television
screen, that still dances
and kisses strangers at
midnight

allowed to pretend that
the chimes of Big Ben
stir our hopes
that the explosions of
coloured flashes
scatter away our fears

in her head
a voice whispers
'make a wish'

without moving her lips
she sighs, fatness for
freedom or a prison
sentence of bones

that wished in herself
all those years
ago

You are the key
he said,

but my heart
is not

the lock

tick

tock

stop

you try
with a flint
and matches
to set a fire
in his heart

but the ice
that lives there
melts it as soon
as it touches it

and she knows
she will have to
either live in the cold
loveless and cruel
or be a moth to a flame
forever

Word that once twisted
on my tongue like dancers
now stick, like sugar, to my lips
sweet honey locks that trap
the fire the eats me from
the inside - a body,
a cage, that echoes
bird less in the night
as I sit smoking out
the nightmares that wait,
like patent lovers, for me
to join them

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

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

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

Our love bred nothing but deceit

an endless line of lies

heirs to untruths and fictions

it runs in the family

this passion for deception

this ache to mislead

we beg an audience for our falsehoods

for they are nothing if they go unappreciated

these frantic fabrications

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

you breathed life into the death filled chasm
of my bones

matching moons with each kiss

buried by bitter bruises
the stain of forever on our skin

awkwardly caught between youth and age

luckless lovers

running from the demons we shared
with the stars

I have always been uneasy
with the phrase
“Until it happens to you”

for me, it diminishes
the sacred bond of empathy

a shared understanding
even without a shared experience

it implies that people
cannot hold your hand
in the darkest moments
of your soul
and feel your pain completely
even if they haven’t lived it

it’s true,
until it happens to you,
you won’t know that darkness,
that trauma,
that pain

you won’t see
the face of your abuser
every time you
close your eyes at night

you won’t remember
every time you
smell that smell,
hear that song,
that name,
visit that place,


but sometimes
that doesn’t matter,
if the right person
makes you feel safe enough
to be yourself again

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

we kissed on rain soaked
street corners

as each droplet looked
like a crystal on the
concrete

and on your wet lips
I tasted the word

forever

bleeding ink from my fingers
I try to paint a picture with words
clumsy and heavy
the letters swim
and change
I smoke ten cigarettes
in an hour
desperate to tease some kind
of creativity from my mind
but the ink runs dry,
and all that is left
is a black handprint on the page,
the result of pressing down too hard,
trying to put my pain to paper

Come and listen to the sound
of my skin,
you will hear the regret
that lingers on it

from the brushes of his fingers
through the fine hairs on my arm,
that embarrassed me,
but he thought were delicately beautiful

you will hear the sighs
he buried in my neck,
after being up with my nightmares
for the third night in a row

he said he didn’t mind,
but those sighs... those sighs...

you will hear the sting of his goodbye
that hit me like a tidal wave,
straight in the stomach,

it stung... it stung like a fierce bee
who had nothing left to lose
by leaving its sting
in the skin of its lover,

hear my skin, hear that sting
it buzzes, hums, vibrates...
my skin is alive with venom

don’t listen for too long,
it spreads

We're drinking tea
from chipped mugs
again, like we do
every morning

dropping sugar
grain by grain
until the sweetness
settles on the top
like a second
skin

we wake up before the alarm sounds
first a minute to ****
and then two

as we sleep
closer night after night
our legs wrapped up
like a song
lyric

I wispered Eliot into your ears, you would leave it
on Post It notes on
the fridge

we don't have photographs there
our love is not
visual

it is in touch
of breath against
neck at midnight

the tightening grip
of strong arms
around as I shake through another bad night

we know how we taste
and smell

the strawberry shampoo
that makes you want
to wrap my hair
around your tongue

I fit into you like
a fossa

our fingers resting
on the ucho
of our tea cups

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

I  am covered
by the loose threads
of time

pulling at
the stitches
of memory

until all that’s
left are the frayed
edges of moments

lost

but I hold
a needle, and
can sew these
torn threads
back into the canvas

of my life, patchwork
with experiences and
memories

a whole picture, a life

complete

I don't want to hear it.
How he found you, you're eyes locked
over plastic glasses
of cheap wine

the way your feet
dangled slightly
swinging from
the stool, avoiding
the floor

how he offered you his
coat, streatched tight
across his slightly
too wide shoulders,
the way the sleeves
blocked you from
the cold in a grip
that was almost
firm, but not...

you knew the price
of an illegal cab fare
just not the cost
of not riding one

orange lights and exhaust fumes,
the engines humming like a bird
that's dying, still fighting
to breathe, like black
beasts of metal and
sulphur

it could have been over
in seconds, a wave of your
hand away from never
starting

instead you wrapped
the coat tighter, like a cage
with soft walls, pockets
stuffed with shot glasses

and took him home

Crimson light -

spin me sideways and
around the bends
that are the journey
of life

this path that I must walk
compass buried deep in my veins

lead me from love that is conditional
and into the centre of a heart that melts
in the morning

above all, shower me in moon dust
so that I may feel I’ve walked the craters
that are the surface of my soul

praise me
for I am a woman of wonderment
ever walking, never stopping

breath in
breath out

destination irrelevant to the holes in my shoes
that are the battle scars it took for me

to reach it

Kiss me on the inside;

can you feel my heart
shake? Do your fingertips
read me like a Carpenter’s
reads wood?

could you re-build my life
in your shed? Re-paint
the years that have
chipped away at my
skin

do you have tools
that can mend souls?
souls that have escaped,
eloped with promises
telling you to hold
tight and wait

Wait.

You didn’t fix
the clock, did you?
The hands still
move too fast

instead of the beginning,
middle and end
you told my story
in a flick book

My childhood is
a paragraph, I was
young for a page

your hands are
hard but your heart
is harder

unflinching,
throwing out
the parts of me
you can’t fit

In

To

You

I forgive you,
of course, when
you show me the
sculpture you made
out of our tomorrow's

the wood has
beeb sanded down,
the edges, smoothed
as you place your arms
around my waist
and lift my face, slightly
to the sky

and there,
where the stars meet,
there is where
our hearts beat

burning out the parts of me
that don’t fit

In

To

You

You said my scar
was a line that lead you
directly to my heart

(and I sighed)

because scar tissue
has no memory
and can never lead you
back to me again

I am a child of the Earth,
sun soaked, soil clinging
to my bleeding fingernails,

breathing out the fires of desperation
and temptation,
breathing in the flame of purification
and damnation,

I am Earth child,
covered in mud and blood,
singing with the weeds,
dancing between the lilac lilies

our breath hangs in the air
as we walk midnight streets
a full moon beaming down
on our shadows

in the blink of an eye
you'll be gone from me
so I cling to your hand
as if my life depends on it

we have found our place
feet standing on pavements
built to carry the weight
of thousands

and in our hearts we carry
the weight of a thousand
kisses, a thousand fingertip brushes,
a thousand unbearable goodbyes

the girl in the red dress
haunts my dreams

twirling through my nightmares
like a ghost

taking coffee at my breakfast table
like an unwelcome house guest

she carries herself with sorrow
with the reminders of every scar on her heart
one for each time it was broken

she walks hand in hand with darkness
for she has seen it, known it, felt it
with her very fingertips

I do not look in mirrors,
for their reflection will show

that the girl in the red dress
is me

There are easier ways to die

I told him
over steaming
cups of tea
that we cradled
and tended to like
children

he would have me
wandering, crawling
from room to room,
like a beast consumed
with the hunger for
dead meat

I've heard him talking
to himself at night,
sitting, smoking,
staring out at stars

I know I've left
scars on his heart

his eyes blue
from the effort
of trying to
to break

but I wake up
each morning,
checking my hair
before I touch
his face

I let him sleep
and take the pillow
case off, shred it
with my hands,
burn it with the
hate that rises
like heat inside
me when I know
that it will be
the same
tomorrow

we used to
fit into each
other effortlessly

now my bones
stick out and
catch the small
of his back like
a spike

six more months
they say and all I
see is my skin
sagging, my stomach
sinking, my heart
beating less and
less

it hurts to know
he hates the things
I think, the thoughts
I can't make him see

There are easier ways to die

than to be eaten
bit by bit
to the bone

The knives of grief stab me in the heart
over and over again and again

they penetrate the beating
pulse that is keeping me alive

when that which I loved
is now merely ashes

I try to find beauty
in the chaos of
hopeless longing

for that which I can never
have again

my heart keeps
beating
beating
beating

but I am dead inside