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

My camera clicks a little
less these days.
It doesn't forget that we are
no longer young.
The years we spent
kissing under trees, stretching
our limbs out to the sun,
skin crisping, blistering,
then peeling. Are gone.
We thought we were
solid and stern, that
we could easily hold off
the gusts of time. Now
we sleep most of the day.
Occasionaly, we take a walk
(in the shade) the trees have
aged too, but they still
stand proud. We are
more like a branch
it's cast off in the wind.
My finger pauses
over the shutter, I
want to mark this
moment, to see if
the picture is less
kind once it's
taken.

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 need you tonight
like every night since we met,
I close my eyes and travel
across oceans and dimensions,
in search of what?
not love.
it was never love,
just an aching need
for the connection
of two broken souls,
the meeting of a shared sadness,
I move like a ghost
between the buildings of the city,
calling out your name
into the midnight sky,
no one answers.
if we never meet again
I’ll survive,
but a part of my heart
will die forever.

knifes slashing designer shirts
their ribbons scattered across the lawn
so that everyone can see your callous
heart. Your reckless romance with a girl
who you don’t own a house with.

I smash mirrors. They say you will always see a man in the mirror, flickering between the candles. I thought that man was you.

I play her messages on the answerphone as loud as they will go. I want people to hear and know how cruel you have been.

I used to be better than this.

but love makes you weak and petty, when it is taken away.

I was -
shackled

a body
trapped in
the bars
of a fist

but I have -
broken

the cage of
God

an angel
flying, wings
unclipped

soaring
soaring
soaring

sun marked
and faithless

he knew
he was
no match

for my free
spirited heart

that there was
no cage that
could keep
me

loveless
and bound
in fear

I am free
and guided
only by the
birdsong

that whispers me
home

I’d paint my face
with the smiles
I stole from
playgrounds
if you looked
closely, you would
see my knees
bruised and bloodied
from falling off the
swings, swinging
into the air like
a fearless bird
but I have no
wings
and fall
like hail
from the sky
onto the
asphalt

Once again
the sound of magpies
hunting fill my head with
images of daylight

and picnics we took
under ash trees
on top of itchy
blankets

I know you only read
those books for me

to make me feel
safe in having something
to say when the conversations
turned to salaries and
mortgages

or maybe that's
unkind. Maybe you
just wanted to understand
me better

when the four ninety-nine
red wine reaches me
I taking about the poems
I'm writing

grape glazed eyes
stare, squinting through
the sun, trying not to
smile. They move on

when we are alone
again we still pretend
I lie about the friends
I met for coffee and
you tell me I look
beautiful

I wonder if you know
the way we sleep

I hope not

and you've never asked
why I crawl out of the
sheets when sleep has
taken you

I sleep on the floor
and slip back beside you
just before you
wake

we never mention doctors or pills
and you know not to hug me
too tight

I make tea for both of us
even though we don't drink
it. It's hard to shake
off the words our mothers said
about a cup curing
anything

when the birds are
still I open the window
and think of flying
to have a body light enough
to break free of
the mind

I take my first
lungful if air
but you reach out
and hold me
where my wings
should be

(they're broken now)

and I realise I'm not the
only one who pretends
to be asleep

you wrap me up
like old glass
in soft blankets

slip another book
off my bedside table
into your bag

and don't cry
until you've
shut the door

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

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?

We spent 3am ,

tongues twisted in conversations
plucked from the depths of our souls

flicking cigarettes against the brickwork,
their ashes hitting the ground, silently

we counted and named each star,
ripping up the book of constellations
because it didn’t speak of
our love, our passion, our urgency

we wanted to be new, fresh, vital
as if we had the right to stamp our mark
on the sky, forever

but why not,
when we knew that our hearts
would not, could not, love each other

forever

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

Forget
what you think
we are

strip us down
to the bare
bones

and see what
lives beneath
the thoughtless

“I love you’s“

the kisses planted on cheeks,
unthinkingly

would we survive?
with our bones and arteries, on show,
with a pale heart pulsing out its own beat
and not the one we’ve forced upon it

is our core strong enough to withstand this test
of raw becoming

or will we fold like a house of cards
for we have no soul to show

Fear Him, they said,
fear for your mortal soul,

but fire is the Devil’s only weapon,
and I do not fear it,

for I have built my home out of flames,
warmed my feet against the bricks
in the deep months of winter,

struck matches against my skin
to see if I could withstand the agony

of being burnt,

and now I know, I can.

so I wrap my fingers round his horns,
and invite him to tea,

for I do not fear that,
which cannot hurt me

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

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

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

The spot where I split open
my heart like a vein
is marked with

white pebbles as smooth
as bones

in the centre
there is a pool of
ice water

I like to pludge
into

submerge myself
and fold into
the wrinkles

that appear in
crows feet

on every inch
of my skin

the shell of
my body

shaking

the bird inside
my chest

dying

as my organs
freeze

I listen to the storm crash
against my window

memories strike, like lightning
and I know that I instilled
the wrath of thunder

in you

and this is you, visiting
to make sure that I never forget

you

“Don’t leave things like this.”

You said,

but you don’t get to choose anymore

your black rose soul that kept me
transfixed for so long

your deep ocean blue enchanting eyes
that told stories as old as the seas
with just a concentrated stare through me

well, those spells have broken
and I will leave you how I like

I could do it in ashes and glass, if I wanted
but I just want to quietly exit, stage left
and leave the petty performance you call love

I took your strawberry jam secrets
into my mouth,
and let their sweetness rot my teeth

sugar stained lips, a lingering kiss,

I’d burn bridges for you,
without a glance over my shoulder,

walk hot coals, and relish the blisters,

but letting your strawberry jam secrets
swirl on my tongue

is perhaps the greatest way that I can say

“I’m here for you, darling.”

your eyes speak of dreams
that were abandoned

and as my fingers wrap around yours

I want to inject old passions into your blood

so that the fire you lost along the way
is rekindled

I want to be the flame that sets alight
those long forgotten hopes

“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)

another cold, long night
counting down the hours until
daylight

keeping one eye on the hands
of the clock, at all times
as they chase down
time

in case they catch on
to my ever growing presence in their lives
and decide to
chase me, hunt me, pin me down

is it every insomniacs nightmare?
(If they ever slept long enough
to have one...)

that time is somehow out
to get them

playing tricks with minutes
turning hours into voids

I only hope that I shall sleep, one night
dream in peace
and no longer be haunted by
the hour hand

Your memory is etched into my mind

as permanently as though it were stone,
and someone took out a chisel
and carved out your name

I cannot forget you,

after six glasses of gin, you blur
into something more beautiful, in character  

but it is still
your face
your hands
your heart

that have woven me
in the fabric of time and space

so that I am a planet

forever in debt to your sun

There is no honour left in love,

a simple twist of the heart
that hurts like a *****

a kick in the teeth
whose lips were just kissed

the digging of nails into a back
that has turned and walked out the door

there is no honour left in love

only cold goodbyes and empty promises
words that have no meaning
actions that have no place
moments that are out of time

if it was a game, why did I lose
without knowing the rules?

in the end, my darling

we are just one breath away
from drowning

sea **** tangling
like ropes around
our arms

waves washing over us
until only our bones
remain

we are just one breathe away
from drowning

and everybody loves the ocean

A tantalising score of lovers
lined up like shot glasses

down in one
hoping to taste gold liquor

until you realise that each one
is merely bad Sambuca

that your friends are egging you on to drink
before you can finish off the night

and go home

I am here,
sort of, I guess
physically I
exist

I have bones
and pink
cheeks

but it doesn't feel
like living

just existing

breathing with
these muscles
that sit so close
to the one that's
dying

and I thought
you would call me
tonight

but the phone
didn't ring

even when
I wasn't looking
at it

I didn't think it was
possible to hurt like
this

I didn't believe
that men could
stamp on
your heart

feel it spread
beneath their feet

and not
care

I am a mermaid

singing a siren song
to bring you home

what could be greater
than a reunion

between the lull
of lapping waves

and a life ever after

in the mysterious ocean

the trick is in your eyes
love and lies
that twist like a knife
in my spine

a deep blue ocean
that I have drowned in
a thousand times

why do I even try?

cut loose, cut free
unshackle my hands
from your tortuous
"I love you"

that is never meant
to server anything
except you own
ego

wandering heart

nomad soul

my only longing is to roam

these ***** streets of pride and pity

these forests of failure and flight

I only want to know the feel

of grass between my toes

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

your mind
is merely dancing skeletons
in the dark
take comfort
in the quickstep
and know that these
shackles will break
and you will dance upon
the heavy dew grass
again

sometimes

the only thing that matters

is that your heart

beats against my ear

and sometimes

the only thing that helps

me thrive

are the seeds of love

you plated in my soul

growing from the roots

of passion

climbing around your body

like Actinidia

entwined until we become

one flesh

one blood

one bone

I linger here
on the edge
of the sea

like a mermaid
waiting for
a man

to trap

with the great
cavity of my
mouth

teeth yellowed
by age and
cigarettes

I linger
like a ghost

the taste of
death is a
salt

that preserves
my body
on the outside

whist the inside
has vanished
into the ocean

like a wave

our lives are in constant
contrast

we live for the moonlight
but melt under the sun

long for the ocean
but drown under the waves

our love is no different

a heart in one hand
taken by another

a lover dreaming
stolen by the morning

we live and love
in a contradiction

confused and erratic
but always

always

searching for moments
of ecstasy in the chaos

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

Like so many that fall here
I am hollow

The tendons of my neck
the open grave of sunken
skin and bone

Telling to story that language can't

It was like a spell,
a wild moment of black magic,
arithmetic bliss

hunger the only antidote
to the poison I swallowed

a childhood stolen
and replaced with a
decade cracking ciphers

years fell against me
like electrocuted trees

people hear the crash
and turn to look
at first, but soon
navigate their way
around the wooden
corpse

my twig-ed fingers
creeping out from
underneath, black earth
and ***** nails, a dead
thing crawling to reach
a last lungful of
dusty air

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

I am forever searching
for the ones I’m grateful to have lost

rose tinted glasses that make
peasant lovers look like kings

the swirl of the past
distorting my memories of heartache
and broken promises

into jewels of truth and the safety
of the crook of your arm

but I must shed these glasses,
swim against the current of these whirlpools

if I am ever to keep hold of myself
if I am ever to move on from
bitter words and anger
into a new chapter of trust and sensitivity

Love
splits us
apart

like the parting
of the sea

waves of longing
rippling between
my heart and yours

crashing against
the rocks of our souls

shattering like glass

we were holding
back the flood

learning how to navigate
the ocean

with a compass
in our arm

like a needle supplying us
with the sweetest of drugs

it was love
(always love)

I see your eyes
false stars in a faithless sky
begging us to try again

but luck runs dry, like water
and dull sparks cannot reignite a fire
the burnt out, long ago

I miss your touch
but it no loner warms me
or reaches my heart

farewell, faithless sky
I have to say goodbye

You liked
    to run your fingers
            through my hair,
                twisting each strand into a smile

You liked
    to trace your fingers
            over my scars,
                fluttering, tapping out the rhythm of your thirst

You liked
    to run your fingers
            down my back,
                marking each bone with a kiss

Claiming the territory
                            
you know own

I live in a world
where feathers are
signs from a
home that you
nest in
out of the corner
of your eye
-
and
smoke rings
must be caught
and cherished
-
the other place
where honeysuckle
fills the air in a
euphoric burst
of belonging
-
the place where
the edges are
soft and sounds
do not grate
-
I would live here
forever, but I
must return,
and leave Him
-
always, always
trapped between,
anchored in
two worlds

My world tilts towards you, always
In the cracks between our two realities
In the corner of the mirror, that reflects back my True Self
You are not whole, right now, still moulding into the shape of the boy I love
Yet, this mailable, weak, shifting form
In which you’ve shown yourself to me tonight,
is enough to make me weep

There is tape on the floor at grocery stores
everybody is staying indoors,
doctors are dying as they tend the sick,
mask less, watching them die,
the death toll rises like a giant wave
escaping the ocean,
fear is everywhere in the air,
like a virus,

and  the virus

The Virus

I watched the squares
on my red checked dress
every play time
as he sat next to me
on the freshly cut grass

the smell of it, eating up
my senses, consuming me

I counted the dates
on the calendar
above the teachers head
every time we were made
to sit together

how one number can roll
onto the next without
ceremony, without being
noticed

I wasn't noticed
only bty him

at nine, you don't understand
what a boys hand down your pants means

you don't understand why it makes
you feel sick,

why it makes you cry yourself to sleep
at night,

you tolerate it, so sure that
this is the way the world works

I was taught to fear men, before I understood fear,
before I understood men

the seeds that were planted in me, rotten, no fruit
would ever grow, no flowers bloom

I would remain tight, in the bud
for a long time

maybe forever

I am waiting for the right kind of rain

the branches shook to hear your name

the magpies screamed when there was
nothing left

to steal

as you’d taken it all, in a fell swoop

like you’d taken my heart

brutally, dishonestly

and the branches shook

in trepidation

in case they were next

I am tired of being
a pit stop for your love

I am not here to fix your broken soul
or refuel your depleting lust

my heart has it’s own wound
don’t make me try to heal yours

(as well)