speaking softly on rocks

that cut our thighs through our jeans

the contrast not going unnoticed

but this is how it is for us, always

a painful contradiction of love and hate

in the same breath

a swelling heart, deflating in a second

but we would not be lovers

if love was a straight line

(anyway)

I feel like we've been walking
these streets forever. My hand
in yours, my heart beating like a
****** clock, the smell of ***,
Marlboro and Mayfair
kissing my collar

I inhale the perfume,
the chemical reactions of
our flesh touching, feel the
electricity shoot through my
body

Exhale slowly, letting the breath
linger on my lips for a second
the air between our mouths
glows red with hunger

But we're not giving it up

Sugar has grown on me,
what once sat untouched in delicate china, is now heaped
spoonful after spoonful,
into my tea

the sticky poison clamping
my tongue to the roof of
my mouth

why?

I guess I stopped feeling 'sweet enough', I felt like I'd lost my audience, who would clammer and chant my name until

nothing

silence piercing my ears with needles, where the **** were the cheers? The applause?

I am a broken bird, fallen from my perch to the dusty floor of my cage. I utter not the slightest moan,

sugar,

I crave.

we lived in a fantasy
that if we saved
each other

then we would
somehow heal the
brokenness that sat heavy
in our hearts

not realising that we were
losing ourselves
by fighting so hard
for each other’s

existence

I understand a flatline
soap scrubbed hands punching chests
the sound of air escaping in a last breath

I can grieve
black hood and buckled shoes
kicking up dirt in the cemetery grass

I thought I had time so I held off saying it
as your congregation sent you inky kisses and prayers

everything is bleached white and sterile, we choke down chemical soaked breaths

holy fools that come to take you
bone by bone

salt crystals form on my eyelashes
as if I've drunk the sea

I am swollen with bread and wine
and sins

the weight of the three words
I didn't say
catch like pills in my throat

I splutter and cough but there is no
shifting them

just the shifting of tectonic plates as my world starts to move

without you

I ask to be planted
into the earth
like an ancient
tree,

so that I may
shed my leaves
in the fall
and grow
new skin
every Spring

I envy the
Oak, Birch and
Ash, ancient
trunks that do
not stain with
the agony
that lingers
in the air

palpable

the rain
is full of
it and yet
they do not
wither and
decay

root me
in the dirt
so that I may
too, feel
pain

and survive it

Bite through my dark
lips, taste the cherry (red)
that sits there like
an invitation

kiss me like you
used to kiss me,
forget the ghosts
that now lay
between us

the boxes full
of bones, tongue
the ulcers, unafraid
to leave traces,
traces of cells

hold my mouth
in your mouth,
just for tonight

and let the skeletons
settle and sleep
in your arms

you
with your passionless
kisses and empty
promises

are the
reason why I stand her
at nearly thirty, empty
and aching

with my
back bent like a cigarette, crushed

under
the weight of a heavy boot

feeling
nothing but the air on my skin and the

way
it burns like a bomb
exploding

You stand
one foot outside the door
expecting me to pull you back
by my heartstrings

but I am tired,
and no longer beat
in time to your

movements

so, go

and I shall burn
myself to ashes
to rise again

and your memory
shall be dust

I see the light in your eyes

f a d i n g

and guilt crawls inside me as if it

has hands

to grasp at my heart and

t w i s t

until I bleed no more

and shame melts off me, and floats

like flotsam

in an endless stream of

h a t e

What about the moon -
waxing under God's gaze
turning the arc of the tide
into a smile or a
crash of anger

I do not pretend
to know it's secrets,
painted in the sky,

only to be seen
at the fall
of night

In candlelight we kiss

two flames meeting

and becoming one

as the wax melts

we wrap ourselves closer together

knowing we have minutes

until our moment ends

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

Stay up all night
and whisper secrets
to my ear

let our star studded
sighs fill up
the night

let gazes between
this heart and
mine

flare like cannon
fire across the
sky

and let deep
lungfulls of love
raise our spirits
like whiskey kisses

breathing, believing
in ourselves when
we wake

I smile and wait for the Autumn,
for the long breaths and deep pauses of Summer to fade

I sit on the porch swigging spirits, but the ghosts are within me and not
without

I swallow pills,
one blue, two white
two round, one flat

pills to stop my heart from racing
pills to stop the twitching
pills to **** the memories that lurk, like dark men in alley ways

he was not dark
it was not an alley way

there was no long grass to lick
my body, no rough wall to bruise my back

no, it was not outside at all

laying in a darkened migraine room, wrapped in a filthy sleeping bag

whilst strangers laugh in kitchens, smoking *** and drinking beer

but I still know the weight of a man leaving a bleeding, stinging, ****

and the frantic showering off of evidence

I will be asked if it was slinky and if my lips were scarlet

I will cry into the pillows I wish he'd smothered me with

every Summer, I will sit
and shake with memories

as if the very sun were to rub salt into my wounds

I will count out pills, swallowing them with lukewarm water

and I will wait

wait, wait, wait

for Autumn

I held forever
in the palm of my hand

as pretty and promising
as a pink carnation

and you took your thumb and forefinger
and ripped every petal off

until all I was left with was a green stem
of memories and might have been

Lay with me,
between the sand
and the sea

weave my hair
between your fingers,
in time to the wind

kiss me, as if Monday's
don't exist

and we will make sense of
this senselessness

I kiss you, empty soul
and bruised lips. Blisters
from biting down, tasting blood, swirling it round my teeth.
You are God to me, a heavenly vision. White and clean, like I have never been. I taste your bones as I take you into my mouth. A mercy kiss. Marrows mixing as we grind, holy hip bones. Friction. The clay compound of hearts. I bury each one in my chest. Hold tightly. And pray for a kiss. Unseen by God. A secret. A deadly sin. We are sinners, tongues searching in the dark. I take you, wine soaked breath and heavy sighs. Rouge red and biting, biting down to the core of the forbidden apple. We are temptation. Hungry and Godless. We forge our way with broken, filthy nails. Seeking, seeking, searching...

It's teeth, it's
teeth wear down,
eroded with the
acid of time and
memory

she told be this
but

the memories, the
memories bite still
sometimes and the
distance

the distance between
who I am and who I
used to be
is growing

growing like an
unweeded garden
and the weeds

the weeds, too
bite and the
bites are

as hard, as
consuming as
fire and
ice

Close your body into -
mine.

It's 4AM and the rain is lashing
down, potholes in the sidewalk
swell from the weight of the
water

endless. The belly of a whale,
guts stripped back, open to the next
punch

why did I pick you? That sounds
like the choice of a gardener, an expert at comparing soil for the rate that a flower spreads

into you. I fell. Heart first and aching,
like the dull ache of a thunder headache, the knowledge that it will
soon clear when the storm comes

we held on hard. Through those
New York winters. We found that the
caverns of our minds were filled
with soft light

that we let flow over us. It is the yellow
seed of a rose that spreads into bloom,
tended by tender hands and allowed to keep its thorns, despite the danger they

hold. For us, careless pickers of hearts. Savage and ruthless, the delicate structure of blood

spills. Out of your mouth in the middle of a kiss. You gag. I scream. We dance out a scene. My pockets hold secrets of death, a small vial the eye refuses to linger

on. And on. It takes thirty minutes to bleed out and I count each one down with a passion you made me hide from
myself

on those nights where you held me down and took me, whispered in my ear with wine stained teeth. As I plotted and waited, waited, held my

breath as if it were made of pure gold. As if air were diamonds. I watched you shudder and take your last shake.

I took the rope from my gown and wrapped it round a tree we'd planted together.

At 4AM I kiss the shallow cheek of Death. A roar from the crowd. "More, more" but there is no

more.

My father wanted me to marry a barrow boy,
he imagined the smell of oranges going
before me, everywhere, my dresses
drenched in citrus

We would pick the best and sell the
rest, holding them in our hands like
precious gems, we would eat them
in front of each other, juice
spilling from our lips, we would
lick the pips away and swallow
mouthfuls of flesh

My father wanted me to marry a barrow boy
to keep the fruit of his labour
alive

I wrapped myself
around you, like
molten gold wraps
around a mould

and sets

our lives were
lines that ran
parallel

until they met

cigarette stained fingers grab at golden hair

she offers herself to God, in martyrdom

eating the bones of Christ
(bruised flesh as a summer dress is torn)

drinking the blood of Him
(cracked hips, buckling)

she swallows, white salt, burnt throat

imagining herself, developing in a dark room

red

and swollen

he lays her out, pinning her lemon dress out to dry

hot Summer sun soaked skin

and cotton

torn

crucified, ***** nails (his) forced through her hands

blood (hers) running down soft thighs

he puts out his cigarette in her hair

before hacking himself a souvenir and handing her

to God

(unflinching)

A suspicion grew in my mind,
not about my lover, as he slept
beside me, statue like, with his fingers in my hair.

No, it is the world that plants
seeds of doubt, what once I
thought safe is suddenly
the open mouth of a fearsome
dragon

He turned the streets I was raised in, into a battleground. Soldiers firing shots, unpinned grenades.

Another theft, a function vital to my survival. To be in the prison of poisoned, toxic bubble of solitary confinement.

We are a world that lets these monsters lure innocent girls and women to their graves, to die without dying, to ****** without killing...

To clamber through fog, walk blindly through a forrest, all pleasure and peace erased by a single act.

I may breathe still, my heart undoubtedly beats, I am the not dead, ******, in a haze of soul aimed gunfire.

Blasted, I crawl like a dog, licking my wounds, dreaming of revenge.

The moment when the rocks
turn to sand beneath your feet,
is the moment when you hear
that bird song, captured in the air
between it’s beak and your ear,
so only you can hear it

only you who can turn
sand back into glass,
to build a window in
your house where
you can only see the tress,
their branches unleashed and
threatening

but you have heard the birds sing,
and sound is the last sense

to go

My eyes open and
it starts,

insect like creatures
walking over my
brain,

each foot fall
falling in an
unbearable

tap, tap,

tapping, the inside
of my skull

knocks,

knock, knock,
he is always there,

is it a he? It must be
from the way he
dances,

twisting his limbs
into irregular
shapes,

patterns that bend
and change the
harder you look
at them.

In a fluid moment,
the kiss of a shape
shifter catches
my lips,

I am thirsty, now,
desperate to drink
something over than
my own acidic
breathes,

I pace pavements,
laces dragging, catching
stones in the soles of
my broken shoes,

the ground shakes,
threatening to open
up

but still I keep
moving, as I am
eaten, insides
first,

claws pulling,
jaws looming.

I walk, blind and
bloodied, fighting
gravity with my
bare hands

as the world buckles
beneath me, the
very roots of the Earth
bending beneath
my feet as I am

swallowed whole

Gracious
they called me
as I raised
my silver
clutching
hand
and toasted
your life
grimacing with
yellow stained teeth
ashes rise and
down she
goes

With a fish bone as a hair piece

she trawled the beach for clues,

a shell, a seaweed skin

the sea spread out and she held

the entire ocean in her mouth

swirling it around her crumbling
teeth

like a fine wine, red and ripe for spitting

out into a plastic bucket

that a child holds in their clenched fist

a mind full of castles and building

and I wonder what we are building

busking outside the mall on even

days of the week

a handful of copper and occasional silver

she runs sand through her fingers

then water

what does she see in those tiny grains of

glass

what does she see in

us

Every Autumn,
my grandmother would
sweep away the leaves
from in front of
her house

she believed my grandfather
was always watching, still
sitting in his wicker chair
chipped white paint
peeling away from the
wood

in the kitchen,
the smell of bread
rose, licking the
ceiling with its
sweet tongue

she still bakes,
hoping the dough
will stretch as far
as his fingers

through swept leaves
and breadcrumbs,

down to the very core

the very core
of her

this is goodbye

keep it.

keep it in
your heart
until it burns

keep it in your
mind until it wraps
around your every
waking thought

keep it close to
your skin
until it blisters
every last inch
of your flesh

keep it anywhere, my lover
my trickster, my fool

just keep it.

I would have moved
mountains, with my bare
hands, if you'd asked me
too

instead my hands wrap,
tight, inside themselves,
fingers weaving patterns
with each wave of
my heart beat

aching, breaking with
each rise and fall,
quick paced and
frantic

as a child, you're told

- the devil makes work
for idle thumbs -

but you are just a man

Does my body not
frighten you?

the scars that run from
elbow to wrist. The pieces
of memory that vanished
with the flick of a Bic
lighter

my solidness. Like a rock
gathering moss, weather
beaten to look at,
rough to the touch

my thighs that have
greeted Lucifer, the firm
push of his hands.
Spreading, swallowing
the dessert, sand sticking
to the back of my
chipped teeth

my eyes, robbed blindly
of innocence. A storm
cloud swirling, frequent
showers of rain that
soak my cheeks

my mouth, that has
tasted strawberries, picked
fresh and kneaded into
a pulp

my knees, bent praying
at my bedside. For forgiveness,
for freedom, for tomorrow's
fling

does my body not
frighten you?

lacking heart, rotting flesh,
the deepest pores of
regret

All rivers run to
the sea, but we play
on their banks
like children,
threading daisies
through our fingers,
grass staining our nails
killing time with knitted
knees, we sit
toes dipped into
the water, cooling
the prickled heat
of our skin

Heart bursting

like spring blooms

I am not sentimental

but your touch is the Devil’s finger

your lips, soaked in Holy Wine

and when they meet mine

I believe in a God I have denied

with all my heart

now bursting with life

(One more gypsy kiss)

like a thief in the night
you have taken me
like the sea

like the night
the darkness
the stars

we are so much
older, now

yet we are
young enough
to know the
sweetness of
a supernova

It's just a shadow of the past
he says

So how come every morning
light seeps like blood through
the curtains, forcing my body
to turn and face the house
guest that's supposed to have
run its lease

It's a part of me now,
like some small spot
you notice in the mirror
one day and keep
picking, picking, picking
at until it's red and
bloated and fit to
burst

You have a pimple
the doctor says
you've been picking at it
for the last five years but
your nails were never allowed
to grow long enough to get
a good grip on it

And the scent of the ward
wonders off my clothes
through my nose
as I sit there and listen

I've tried soap and
bleach and caustic soda
but madness has its own perfume
its own way of clinging to
your skin long after your name's
been rubbed off the whiteboard

I'm drifting in and out of
dreams now that I've left his
office, waiting for the train
to take me back to my
husband and kids who will
smell where I've been
the moment the front door
shuts behind me

But they will never say

We stare, transfixed,
as the river sweeps our pebble ripples

further and further
away from the centre,
where the stone heart fell

like I fell for you, that day
under golden Autumn trees,
kisses as leaves crunched beneath our feet

yet now, a simple pebble is all it takes
for our lives to grow

further and further
apart

I have always had an uneasy longing to be
Godless in a world ful of Devils,

as I walk blindly down an unfamiliar road, I force my keys between my fingers,

I hear the sound of glasses breaking,
the aftershock of a fist making
contact with a jaw

someone is following me and,
despite myself, I pray

later, when I wake from the haze
of a Rohypnal dream

catch sight of my siren red bra
on a hostile floor

inhabiting a body that aches,
beating to the rhythm of a clam -
like heart

head spinning, a brain that has been
suddenly stunted,

I wonder how I could have turned
to God?

To have turned my back
on the Devils, to be caught
unawares

is this my punishment for a fickle faith?

the boy who cried wolf,
eventually burning beneath the sun

why do my legs shake with rage
at the thought of ever

praying?

Inhuman

I sit, staring at the crack
where my mirror as
split

I say my name inside my head

I don't belong to it
now

It is heavy on my tongue
and I remember how my
ears received it, long ago

the cold blanket of winter
warms me like whiskey

its whiteness shields me

I wake up and my limbs
refuse too

the clock sticks
twice,
the time is right

yet I am never there
to see it

backwards, I walk through my life
and the path of pills that have
allowed me to step between
worlds, between walls

as if they were made
of paper

A memory of you reaches out
a hand,

floating to the top of my
consciousness as if the
layers of time
are water

in it, you are
smiling and picking
currants out of scones

the flour that dusts
your fingertips touches
me, unawares

we are sharing sugar
between lips and

in that kiss I knew
we were sinking

sinking down between
the wavers of flesh
and moans

to be shipwrecked
with you, was a
fantasy

but now I am
sinking,

sinking,

without

you

I have spent my life
drying out, like wood
left in the sun

shrinking back into
the shape I was
born

rather than the
woman I wanted
to grow into

Like ancient Greeks
crafting words onto patched
papyrus, we are the split
at the bottom of a
kalamos with enough
ink to sign our names

We were born of
water reeds. Our salt-wrapped
hearts still float amongst
the long leaves

in the river where we drowned

Teach me
the contours
of your
body
and I shall
memorise
them
and find
you again

I try to remember the sound
of padded paw prints,
foxes chasing rabbits
underneath trees,
shedding their leaves
across autumn

the smell of honey
and lemon rising form
a bowl of boiling water

but I can't,

these fresh sheets
should remind me of forests
and old wives cold remedies

but instead, your hands rest
upon them, skin brittle and
transparent , as I place damp
cotton buds to your chapped lips

thinking only of winter
folding before us, electric blankets
that burn through
to my thighs

leaving red marks that spread
like sly smiles from the corners
of your mouth

when they took
the wires
out

I draw hearts in the sand

like a child

and my heart beats for you

as wildly and recklessly

as only a child

would

With lips that challenge the
reddest of wines

she drank from the cup that was offered, without question

it was sweet. Sickly sweet and dark

dark sugar, the colour of ***
drips from her mouth,

she wipes off the evidence with a snide smile,

a knowing scorn. Almonds

ground up and mixed into marzipan

covering cakes, full of plump fruits soaked in brandy

take a slice. You have your cake now

eat it.

(J'ai demandé à la lune,)

am I too cold for you?
why won't you wrap your arms around me? Unloosen those limbs like a tree shakes off its branches in the wind.

do you not own me enough? Twenty five years of children, houses we don't own, school plays and split pay checks.

twenty five years of mixing you cocoa every night, adding the cold milk and sugar that makes it palatable to you.

a king sized bed, with blankets and comforters. Why do I need to be covered by your body, wrapped in sky blue silk?

you should be warm enough for yourself, she says. As she passes me a glass of picnic basket wine. I turn my head.

there are fire flies to catch, bees circling the grasses we're about to drink from, a blue dragonfly.

(il était seulement une aventure.)

Spending cold winter days indoors,
I boil milk on a stove
to warm my stomachs
my hands clutched tight
around a hot mug

a restless urge to wander
and I find myself in the
snow covered garden

where I eat berrie,s recklessly
with little care as if
they are poisonous

self destruction is
inherent in me,
I go of on a whim
sometimes, a wild
wind of despair

I do not want to be
this cold, but there are
no flames hot enough
to thaw out the ice

that runs like
a spike through
my heart

Our bodied are built
by billions of tiny, red
hearts (within hearts)

I love you
despite infection

my intention is to
swim in the sea of
your blood

and find a tiny, red heart
of my own

It was a long time ago, years
(or maybe it wasn't)

time blurs and blends
into the folds of my mind

a trapped moment, a decade
long howl at the moon

I mean to say, it was that day
that we visited the lake

the water reflected the sky
so perfectly in the sunlight

distorted, things are bigger
when we look back at them
(or smaller, maybe)

the wings of a blackbird spreading,
it's muzzled song

I kept a pocket of light in my hand
and held it out to you

you drank from the cusp, deeply
your lips glistened with it

I licked off the sugared
strawberry juice

that gathered at the corners of
your mouth

it dripped down my chin
red, as fire

and twice as hot
(or maybe not)