I look in the mirror
each morning
and see a stranger
reflected back at me

I take my fingers
and peel back the first layer
of glass, and reveal nothing

I accept that I have to invite this stranger
into my life, like an old friend
offer her tea, make her comfortable
love her enough in the hopes that one day
we may connect

and I shall no longer see her face
but my own, reflected, smiling

I am not whole, you see,
for there is a hole that runs
right through the centre of me

a void of emotion
where fear, shame and despair

disappear from view

(from me)

rainy days can make my mind murmur, though
with a flicker of recognition

For even the sky cries, dear...

Even the sky

tell me I am welcome
in the darkest corners
of your mind

tell me I am welcome
to rest my heart there

tell me I am welcome
to stay

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

When we sat in the garden
Under a canopy of wisteria
Surrounded by colour, and by life
We did not realise that as we drank our coffee
We were sipping time from a chipped cup

Each mouthful another week less
To spend with you
Talking and debating about everything
Under the sun, falling out and making up
ALWAYS making up

Each bittersweet gulp another month
Nearer the vultures
The pain of watching them eat away at you
Whilst you had to be fed by tubes
Whist I measured my days, my weeks, in hospital visits

The stench of pity all around me
As useless to me as faith
And worse, the toxic fake false positivity
Telling me everything would be okay
When you were ******* dying
I want to tear their words into pieces
Shred them to nothing because that’s all it means
NOTHING

Eventually, our cup of time ran out
Please know that I never wanted to leave you that day
Please know that I would fight lions off with my bare hands
To say one last goodbye

You are gone, and I am left
Traumatised by seeing the true horrors of cancer
But holding on to the fact that the last thing we said
To each other was “I LOVE YOU”
And I am loving you always
But always longing for

One last hug
I’d give up a thousand tomorrows
For one more hug
Nuzzled into your neck
The smell of your hair
The feel of your shirt
The beat of your heart
The steady rhythm of your breath
Soothing my fear

How can someone so alive
Suddenly disappear?

In the darkness there is;
the gentle glow of light from your cigarette
and the reflection of each other
in each other’s eyes

most people dance under the stars
but you and I dance amongst them

Your gaze burns into
the back of my skull

intensity that I dare not
look away from

daring to ask questions
that speech cannot

a fire inside the heart
of your eyes

yet they are as empty as
a snakes

heartbreak cutting through
your irises

your pupils shining black
with grief

am I really responsible
for the death of such beauty?

for the death of a sacred look
a sacred wink

can we not go back to the beginning?

brown eyes that I fell in love with
and mine, blue

that you said were as deep
as the ocean

and yet more beautiful

and yet, and yet,
at the end of the day

more deadly

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

I am grieving for my past selves

the selves that never made it

fractured fragments longing to be found

pockets of secrets
and black as ink truths
that I have carried with me

forever

and yet, they were tossed aside,
and burnt with the waste,
as if hazardous to continue existing

I grieve for them,
and for myself,

walking around with this
huge hole in my heart,

but I walk on, and mend, as best I can -

bandaids, staples, superglue,

repairing the cracks and yet,
having the courage to weep for what
has caused the wound

Grace diminished,

what once was a bright, shining star

is now a blown out candle

I trace your name in the smoke, in the wax

a desperate attempt to rebuild from the ruins

our love is the flames that went out

without warning

and without a match to get them going

again

do you want me to pretend?

happiness, spread like a beach
of broken glass,

each tiny little rock aches
with its own weight,

the hands that break me
wrinkled and chalklike,

they do not care about me.

do you want me to pretend?

sadness, like a line a boats
each one begging to leave their harbour,

each one carrying an anchor that will both
keep them stable and refuse to let them move,

the known and the unknown.

I will pretend, for you.

I am not bathed in black water,
I am not soaped in sandpaper,

I am content.

my heart is not carved in the shape
of pain,

it does not cry in agony at the slightest
touch,

I am happy.

For you.

I am happy.

He pressed a twenty pound note
soaked in whiskey
into my hand

This is for the taxi home

my legs are dead
and bruised

hair ripped out
at the roots

black leather boots
scuffed at the kick

make it look like
an accident

a broken glass
on the floor

a red wine kiss
at midnight

frozen lips that
whisper lustful
moans

and I remember
the first drink
in the park

the innocent brush
of a hand against
a thigh

as I take the money
and run

There is something

other than a man

about him

eyes bright, 
lips
locked
 tight

his fingers

are not that

much longer

than mine

they too
 know
chemicals

the touch of glass

between your bare

skin and acid

I tap words
through the sheets

with my finger-

tips

dot dot dot

dot dot

dot

and through the

haze of sleep
he smiles

his mouth titling

towards mine

we don’t call it

kissing

it is the pleasent purple

colour of neutral

litmus paper

it is our data
spreading

from the corners

of our mouths
into my
 cheeks

my body betrays me
and colours them
red

but it is more
than a flush
of a fantasy
made present

to be able
to touch

this man who hides
(and lies)

to know
this light touch
of a man in
a mask

which he allows 

only me to
see 
through

in the depths
of your heart
I found a
home

in the crook
of your neck
I found a
root

in which
to grow
from

like a bud
I remained
tight

until your
touch
awakened
me

This carpet is
alive

a thousand ants
scuttling
scratching
the back of
my neck

I know your tongue
is blue before it is
inside me

Cheap alchopops
topping up glasses
of cheaper *****

You don't smoke
anymore but
I am still passively

Choking in the fumes
that trigger off
those pleasure
receptors in
your brain

Is this why
you're doing
it?

Is it just
a greater
pleasure?

I am thankful
for the adults
water you gave me

Liquid lullabies
that buzz gently
in my brain

Whilst you strip

My phantom lover appeared to me

whispering words of love and affection

promises of forever
and “we’re in this together”

but the moon fades, his ghostly face

with it

and I’m left alone again

trying to pluck his memory from my dreams like a flower

it is always a pale comparison
a weak imposition

each night he comes,
and fades at daybreak

and my darling,
I know enough to know
that you’re not real

but this feeling

(this ******* feeling)

white hot
burning a hole
straight through my soul

is as real as the sand
is to the Pyramids

and I cannot break free
from this twisted apparition

it is my life, now
my heart belongs
to a dead man

when I look God in the eyes

I want to have the courage
to tell him that he has
the whole thing wrong

for I will look in your eyes

and know that I did not
have to die to reach

Heaven

Autumn
falls back through my memories,
ripples of remembrance that ache
in agonising sweetness,
an echo of a time when sunbeams
danced off your face,
in twilight dreams, I walk these streets
of past joys and past pains,
tasting the black cherries from your Cupid
fingers
that stained my lips red, a template for your kiss,
the day I dropped anchor in
your heart

Love is just a game, you said

and there’s a knack to playing it
that you could never teach me

however hard you tried

but then, winning all the time
would be boring

and at least I never cheated,
or tried to bend the rules

I’m not suggesting you did, my love

but you are are a compulsive gambler,
with a poker face that I have tried to navigate

with kisses,
warm and gentle, playing my own game,
the manipulative tricks of a woman

but failing, always,
to keep you from those jacks and aces

I guess love is really (a) blind

how long can we go on pretending
that we are merely playing

when our hearts are on the table?

A heart in Spring bloom
glowing as brightly as daffodils

I tread on a carpet of tulip petals
my eyes weeping sunflower seeds
each one containing a droplet of love
as my soul aches with the sun

and the bitter knowledge that flowers
have too short a lifespan

too short a life to stare into your stem green eyes
and quiver, like a clematis stumbling
on its climb towards

the sky

You were forever saying “look!”

at the flowers
at the sky
at the stars
at the moon

but not once did you look
in my eyes

and see your pain reflected
back at you

a mirroring of broken souls
broken parts
broken hearts

that were destined to shelter
with each other

during the storm

You gave me a daffodil
now a single, shrivelled petal
resting in the palm of my hand
the forgotten promise of spring
weeping between my fingers

I remember its fragrance
something lost in the passage of time
like our love, my darling,
like our love

Ink runs from the end of my fingers
as easily as blood trickles out
of a wound

spitting words that melt
in the air

teeth blackened by
the ashes of prose

I would swallow them
down if I could

but each one
bangs on the back
of my closed lips

begging to be
free

to fly off
my tongue
into nothing-
ness

Your lips taste
of gin, the feel of
chipped teacups
and taste of
broken biscuits

but you are not
that seventy-something
really, despite the
paper-like skin that shows
the blue train tracks
feeding your heart

I am hoping that it
cracks, like a
chemical burn,
I want to hear
the skin splitting,
spitting out the
lemon juice of
your jeers

your eyes are
my mirror, black
and loveless

stinging, still
with lemon
pips

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

He's everywhere
again

the blood that sticks
my lips together

when I wake

the dogs that bark
behind  white washed
gates

the cold grab of
the village drunk

the heat that's taken
from me in rare moments
of sleep

the dark rings under
my eyes that I wear
like rosary

so the devil
I picture holding
hands with you

becoming you

can't see my insides

organs, scattered

rotting

the red, anxious rash
that covers me

the knots and filth in
my hair

He is everywhere

I wanted you the way that
January leaves need the
snow to water out
their dry, cracked
veins

but now you're in my
blood, the way that
an infection crawls
into an open wound,
plants it's seeds and
grows there

every lungful of
air is mixed with
sand, sticking like
dust to the back of
my throat

sandbagging
our voices, forcing them
to be content with
the odd restless
word that slips
through our lips
whilst we're sleeping

silence is our
live in and she
runs a tight ship

tight enough
to keeps us touching
no matter how hard
our limbs try to fight
their way to
freedom

I pick lemons from trees
meant for g&t’s
blessed fruit
chemical release
relief from longing
and memory
a slip of something else
and I am dancing with
the demons that would
otherwise destroy me

another life is taken
hearts are breaking
bombs are being made
children laid to rest
the world is spinning
backwards
God's indifference
or inexistence
your country may send you
your pride may ignite you
the waving of flags may blind you
to the blood stains on the sand
to the cries of the mother's
being torn from their daughters,
to their sons being sent
to fight a senseless war
and it will happen all over again
and again
as long as humans, are humans
full of greed and power and an ability
to turn a blind ear to the cries of
human suffering

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

I miss your heart

the way it played
tricks

on mine

the way it would beat
faster if you saw me

smiling

I miss your heart

with all it’s arteries
and veins

red and blue
washing a purple night sky

over my soul

I miss your heart

it’s elements of love
that built me into a

a woman

who didn’t need to be loved
all the time

only in the windows
of your eyes

We have a love
that spreads out
across the constellations

each star a pinprick
of memory

a touch
a kiss
the lingering feel
of your fingers
running through my hair

the sun a burning siren
to our hearts, so that we
are never lost, never
straying too far apart

we hold reality
in the palm of our hands

weaving stories like
stitches into the
fabric of time

we will watch
as the universe burns

safe in the knowledge
that we have immortalised
our love

We dig our graves with our fingernails,
imprinting the memory of the soil to them

to be able to claw our way back out again

when death wraps us around His teeth
and sinks them into our despairing necks,

people ask me;

“did you fight to the death?”

and I blink, not understanding the point
they are trying to make,

or else wondering if they are asking
to see the documented photos of my injuries,

“I would rather die!”
they say,

but I know how desperately
you want to stay alive

when a fist meets your face
and a hand smothers your mouth

and you can’t breathe

and you don’t believe in God,
but you pray anyway

Do. Not. Let. Me. Die. Here.

Please,

don’t

Death’s jaws will take you,
but you know that soil, now

and you can climb,
dear God girl, you can crawl

inch by inch

into the sunlight

We were two kids
kicking bricks
as our legs
hit the wall

I never thought we'd
grow up

we were Peter Pan
and Tinkerbell

dressed in greens
of different shades

dressing up
meant nothing
back then

becoming someone else
was easy

now we no longer fight
over who gets to
pick first

from the wooden chest
of characters in the attic
of my Mum's house

(with the big yellow
kitchen that smiled
like the face of a
'well done' sticker)

we only kiss when
the kids are
watching

a peck on the cheek
that hurts as much
as the time I
broke my arm
with you

I like to think
that it's you that's
grown out of
loving me

(the way that you
grew out of your
shoes between
school terms)

but that's
too kind

the smell of your cigarettes
catches in my throat

it tastes of home
and your warm

embrace, holding my body
as it shakes

like a butterfly desperate
to fly, but

wings clipped and
chained

to the root
of your

heart

I remember the first time
that you told me
that the universe
was infinite

I didn’t sleep,
thinking of all the
millions of galaxies,
bursting with life

stars and suns burning
thousands and thousands
of light years away

and the sudden realisation
of the insignificance of us

forever taught us to sing
like nightingales,
each note an echo of a heart -
beating, in unison,

we were the wild ones,
reckless with love,
spending its currency
like there was no tomorrow

and now we cling to the tomorrow
we never thought we’d share,

hands clasped tight,
our initials written
on our spines in fingerprints

we glow under the stars of
the ones that made it
through together

You said

“You will never love again.”

and I believed you, for years

I wasted my life

walking beaches alone
staring sadly out across the ocean
each grain of sand incapsulating my loneliness
each wave roaring along to my pain

but I learnt to see beauty in the solitude
and hear the stirring song of the sea

and I loved it,

with what bit of my heart wasn’t torn

I loved again

I saw her
in a crack
of light

a shard
of broken
mirror

I am the
flames of Hell
burning

up, combusting
into ash

only footprints
of where she
stood

only echoes
of where she
laughed

only half
a person

a shell
without
a soul

I am a volcano,

a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass
threatening to consume all in my path
with hot lava and gas
erupting at the slightest, single touch

so be ******* careful
if you dare touch me

Amidst the chaos of
what was and
what can never be

there is now

I’ll sit and hold
your hand, here,
in this baffling moment

and whisper
“It’s okay”

finding words

like pulling teeth

can be unbearably painful

but sometimes

they are merely baby teeth

pathing the way

for something new

to grow

I want to write a poem
where every word is sacred
every letter wraps around the page
like a pair of arms, comforting
and warming,
I want to reach out like a hand
to save you from drowning
for the ink to spread into the
entire ocean,
infecting the crystal clear water with
uncomfortable metaphor,
just read, or listen, and I'll kiss you
gently on the forehead with a simile
to make your smile,
my words will set you free, my darling
just listen
just listen
just listen

I scan the sky every night
for your star,
the one that burns with your memory
and name,
I kick myself that I cannot tell it apart
from an infinity of stars scattered
across an inky black carpet

But tonight, a single star shone alone,
brilliant and bold, and I felt
an unseen hand on my shoulder,
squeezing out the tension of grief
that had been held there,
for so many months,

and the star’s sigh merged
with my own exhalation of relief

my heart is a wild thing
walking the wilderness
searching for another
wanderer to call
my own

I have wasted years of my life
stumbling from one fire to another
and now I need a balm to heal
these burns

wild things long to be tamed, sometimes
and though I do not want a cage
I would **** for a pair of arms
to wrap themselves tightly around my body

"How does it feel?"

to be bare bones
flesh burnt off
by unkind
words

to be numb inside
feelings consumed
by the darkness
that few understand
but too many
experience

to walk around half alive
your only hope
being that your
soul has somehow
survived what you
could not

I imagine myself
as an architect
crafting buildings
out of broken
bits of rocks
pencil lines
on paper
shaping into
something
beautiful

it must have
been beautiful
in the beginning
when our mind
had no pictures
to compare
to the ones
our eyes could
take

I imagine the
start of the
universe
dark matter
and energy
and how it
would feel
to absorb
any light
that hits

to hide where
even Galleo’s
gaze can't
reach

I'm writing this
on the back of
a bank statement

it's from our joint account
and, circumstances without,
I smile slightly at the thought
that I was ever close enough to
someone to share names on
an envelope

the money doesn't matter,
we are none without our vices,
little human weaknesses
that creep through and climb
the tallest if walls

I drew out note every morning
from the ATM on the corner,
to buy cigarettes and chocolate

often, I'd ingest them together
like a double dose of Aspirin,
a double shot of whiskey

slightly reckless but
essentially harmless

The smoke would coat
my throat, the sugar
settling like a layer
of film

I know, it sounds disgusting
so, shall we talk about you?

I'm almost disappointed
by the banality of it all
fake names, hotel rooms
and guilty ***

I'd known about those pitfalls
since childhood but I still
married you thinking you were
different, original

If you had to leave I wanted
a storm. That you would
fling a fist towards the sky
and declared your hatred of me
your boredom, your lack of love
for me

and I'd spill my own guts,
violently, coughing up my
own bile for you

but no

I'm running out of space
now, and I'm scrawling ink
over our branch name
and sort code. The paper
constricting, closing,
pressing me for an
ending

The air swirls
through the still
night and I want
to be with you

I should know better
than to turn to
you

but feelings
can't replace
the facts

the way your arms
hold me

the way my head
just fits into
the crook of
your neck

It's a heart wound
that's fatal, that
bleeds over everything,
colouring and staining
the sheets, my skin,
my eyes

I should be out
hunting, painting
the town red

and I am

but I don't think
I'm doing it right

there are thousands
of boys out there

boys that don't break
in the morning

boys that don't pick
your heart apart

boys that don't kick
you

or tie scarfs around
your neck

but the bruises
always heal

and the thought
of waking up
next to someone
who loves me
just isn't enough

to stop me
loving
you for
hating me