I am myself whole,

no longer a fraction
of a second away
from fading

imagining an ocean
to stop my heart from
hammering

through my ribs,
bursting through
my chest

birthing something
unknown, unwanted
and caged

I am a timid bird but
nervous wings still
flutter, still fly

I am reaching into
the darkness,
arms outstretched,
eager, fearlessly
facing the future,

running blind

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 can taste
the metal
of the sky,
steel stars and
aluminium moons,
iron gates,
shielding hearts like
a rib cage, but ribs
break
and the iodine smell
of broken skin
seeps into the
floor, like a blood
stain
bright red at first,
but dulling to
a ***** brown
I am Eve
before the apple,
my snake
merely butter-
fly and I can
see Adam, reach
his hand towards
me, lips smirking
as he feels me
twist, like tin
foil, away
from his
waist

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 will not stop because
you have stopped

I will look out of windows
and smile at faint traces
of snow

I will lick the sugar from
my coffee spoon

just like I lick the sugar
from your lips

I will watch waves crash
against rocks

feels waves wash against
my bones

I will read all the books in our library, twice, and stick post
it notes to mark the pages

because you never let me
keep place

keep pace with myself

I will **** the juice out
of an orange and let it
dribble down my chin

and stick there

I will not die inside
like you have
died

I will be childish and brave

curious and compassionate

I will do the things you
say I am too old
to do

and I will smile
reckless and
young at heart

as I slip between
the sheets

old age and cynicism
so close to brushing
my skin

as I try to avoid
touching you

your weak breath tickles my ear,
with fading heat, like a September afternoon,

and I hate myself just as much as you hate me,

for my greed and loyalty to the cards,
instead of the stars that were your eyes,

but your heart was impenetrable, always,
like Everest or the Atlantic Ocean,

I could not get close enough to touch it
and make it mine,

close enough to make you mine,

so hate me, and I’ll hate myself,
but I’ll know my faults wondering
if you’ll ever accept yours

in return

I have burns
on my hands
from touching
you

as the blisters
burst

I feel you
eradicate
my fingerprints

and

(again)

I

become

nothing...

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

It's a romantic city
(apparently) but
for me it's

the wet London streets
I walk to reach you

stale milk in coffee
shop teas, sugar spoons left
on greasy table tops

the drizzle of rain
relentlessly beating

the orange lights of
taxis, magnified
in the droplets

***** staircases that take
me underground

the songs talk of
Waterloo Bridges
and sunsets

that bounce off the
Thames, as if the water
is polished glass

but I sat there one night
crying, my heart breaking
over South Bank

and the sunlight was never the same

give me battered books
piled dangerously in doorways

dusty corners of theatres

and the rain

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

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

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

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)

You unhook me like
a fish, still shaking
and terrified of being
eaten

as you let me go
I feel the weight
of you

against me

my face turned
seeking not to
see you

I am the flesh
and bones of
you

the carcass that
lies motionless and
rotting

outside in

I have lingered on
the edges of this
lake, like a flower

or the decapitated head
of a child's doll,
no longer interested
in playing

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

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

The man beside me talks in his native tongue,
I hear the accent, broken and beaten out of him yet still,
strong
he is talking of crossings and kindness, a welcome mat on the door of another
country
his coffee skin is spooned like sugar, people either take or leave
it
and the sound of waves crashing over a rubber boat
and the cries of children as icy water hits their not yet weather worn faces
pregnant women rummaging in bins for bread and the skin and bones of men,
beaten, broken, seeking comfort from an unkind face
a border, protected and a land that needs purging, a plague of fear and the man, beside me
who I cannot understand except in his heartbeat and in mine, synchronised organs that know nothing of race, fear and hate that breeds and blossoms like cherry trees. Peeling back skin and language, I hold his hand, as the ashes of the world fall on us all.

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

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.

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

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

Women of fire burn more
than the bridges that no longer serve them

they burn holes in the souls of their lovers

leaving them forever branded
with their spirit of flame

engulfing their hearts in passionate smoke,
so that they may choke on their very presence

even when are no longer there

whether their love is reciprocated

or not

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I draw hearts in the sand

like a child

and my heart beats for you

as wildly and recklessly

as only a child

would

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

and sets

our lives were
lines that ran
parallel

until they met

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...

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.

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

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

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

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

I unfold in the Summer.
I collapse, piece by piece
into myself

I stare at the ceiling for days,
else pace the floorboards
getting splinters in the soles
of my feet

I mix a drink over the plate filled sink, I don't take care of the basics.
Washing, cleaning...

I neglect it all. I stick to drinking gin from ***** mugs. I was drunk then and I don't think I've sobered up

a decade of paint striper and counting coppers, of wine soaked breath and flinching

sometimes I eat. Swelling my stomach with half baked bread. Too hungry to let it rise

I stand, stock still, under the moon. A whisper between man and man. A backfiring car. A memory...

it still hurts sometimes, when I move. So I wear cotton. Do fabrics have innocence? Do colours?

lemon and orange. No more siren red

(I spread)

He must have loved you, they say to me now. People only **** the ones they love

or the pretty ones

(and I am not a pretty one)

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

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

to be real
in a false
world

is like wearing
a corset made
of your own
bones

your heart
weakly beating
beneath your
armour

it pulses red
fist shaped
and ready
to fight

the creatures
that lurk
like spectres
in the dark
corners of
your mind

it's not up
to you if
you win
this fight

only you
try, you
try, you
try

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

& I thought
that the pink pills
would slide down
my throat
like ice cream
but I gagged
and choked

& I thought
that a footprint
vanished as
soon as
more snow
fell

& I thought
that a
final prayer
howled from
within the
shaking temple
of my body
would set
me free

& I thought
I thought
I thought
that suicide
would be the
end of me

& yet it
birthed me
back into
the world

& my newly
weaved pink
skin slided
into a time
before into a
a narrative
that was
impossible
before

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?

(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

(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.)

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