The whips of time are chasing me

crashing against my back
until my skin splits and bleeds

there is no escaping their advances
torturing me to walk onwards
towards the winter of my life

when I was so settled in the summer, soaking up the sunshine
and loving the feel of my hair blowing
in the warm breeze

onwards
onwards
onwards

the whips of time are beating
out their drums

a chilling song that freezes my blood

my back is pouring, now
as I walk to their beat

and I know I must accept
my own death

before they force it
on me

I remember late night conversations
with you;

the taste of wine rich on our tongues
gentle orange glow around our fingers from our cigarettes

I miss them more than I miss
your touch upon my skin

more than I miss your
kisses upon my lips

midnight skies the backdrop
to our putting the world to rights

I ache for those early morning hours

they’re so quiet now,
a deathly hush over what used to be
alive with fire and passion

you can keep your caresses, your kisses
just give me one more night of
splitting our hearts open

together

I love you,
without question or condition

I hear you,
like hummingbirds in my heart

I see you,
a lone star in a midnight sky

so bright that all the others simply
vanish into the blanket of the universe,

I feel you
when I’m pressing my fingerprints
into your thighs,

passing my identity onto you
so that we can become one,

one flesh
one star
one heart
one love

and maybe one day you will see

that I was standing here all along

waiting

waiting

waiting

I’m walking through a dark forest

trees caging me in
with their branches

it is the forest of my heart

beaten and bruised
until there is nothing left

but a small red *****
that anyone can hold in their hand

and destroy further

branches like bars
and trunks like locks

the forest is unforgiving

but I must walk through it
every night

in order to reach daylight

I’m feeding myself snippets of memory
in the hope it will ease thebhunger I feel,
this hunger I’ve felt since you’ve been gone, ravenous and raw

I devour a lifetime of photographs,
so that I never forget the curves of your face
an “all you can eat” of your name
swallowing it over and over again,
so that my lips never forget it,

I am slow to realise that this hunger
is grief, triggering action
I sit with it long enough to soothe
the need to act on the fact I’m empty

to just be empty

and wait for your memory
to softly echo back to me

an incomplete life
can be made whole
by love

but a fractured love
can never be made whole
by a full life

work, drugs, money
are pale substitutes
for a welcoming
heart

bitter medicine
for the feel of another’s arms

I am incomplete
and searching for a love

unlike any I have ever known

a love to make me
whole

Do not tempt me

with your red wine lips
and ink black hair,

eyes as dark and mysterious as an ocean
with waves that lap and engulf the shore,

well, I am the shore,
consumed by the sea of your heart,

I beg you not to take me in your arms,
for I could plant my roots in the crook
of your neck,

do not speak to me of love,
for I dare not dream, imagine, feel,

with every fibre of hair on my skin,
that you have shamelessly got under,

do not tempt me with promises,
doused in holy water as they may be,

I can not believe them,
I have been betrayed by forevers before

and I will not let a crack appear
in the lens through which I view you,

so just let me take you into
the ripples of my mind,
the circles of my eyes,

every inch of your flesh and hair,

every smell,
every touch,
every note of your voice,

each cigarette you smoked
over morning coffee,

each whiskey you drank
over midnight musings,

let me see you always,
as I see you now

this thankless skin of yours

echoing like the call
of a thousand crows

under the shadow
of an unforgiving night

I have tried -

to cast a spell over your green,
spark-less eyes

but magic is wasted on you

I wonder if we ever meant to let go,
a heart skipping beats, a record stuck on repeat

I wonder why we said it,
thought we meant it,
hoped we’d dreamt it

you get to be yourself completely
in the arms of another
only once

(if you’re lucky)

and we were lucky

so when we said it, meant it, dreamt it,
was it spite?

“goodbye”

spite
malice
an adult temper
tantrum

I carry your memory like oxygen,
breathing in and out a pattern of
the past,

your face swirls like ripples on a lake,
the echo of a laugh dropped like a pebble
on its surface,

carrying hope in one half of my heart,
and grief in the other,
I walk to its new beat,

and your memory, like oxygen,
pulsing through my veins,
putting one one foot in front of the other

to who knows where, but always with

you

There’s disaster in everything I’m
t
o
u
c
h
I
n
g

your hand twisted like a vine under
mine, blue and blistered, buried
memories of love, but I *******
let go

left the vine hanging loosely, limply
lifelessly, just one catastrophic touch
from the hand of a Godless

witch, the craft of destroying,
perfected and projected
onto you

and one touch of
disaster