those sun bleached days
are mere memories now

our hearts squeezed like a sponge
until they ran dry

kisses on tiptoes with sand
scorching our feet

are now drops in an infinite ocean
of dark blue - to

black

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

I belong to you -
your body gleaming
white under the
unforgiving moon -
we can hack the
silver out of the
sky, swallow
stars like Asprin -
each circle of
relief bringing
me back to
you, folded into
the corners of
your mind -
whispering to me
that you are
still alive

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

By profession,
I am good at
waiting

I am used to
the cruelty
of human upon
human

wounds of wars
and words

delicate deceits that
brush lips with skin
and skin with finger -
prints

like him, I look at bodies
and see stories
I see bruises and scars
that conceal secrets

I can read crimes
as clearly as if
they were written
in blood across
the scene

this game should be
beneath us

he is cruel
and offers a
chance, smaller
than anything
I’ve seen on a
microscope slide

but still, breathing
existing, taunting

leaving me breathless
and broken

it squeezes my
heart as if the
blood inside is
a poison that
needs extracting

my once logical
mind quivers
under his kiss

and empties

he is the ****
that grows beneath a flower
until it is too wild
to ****

I said
'I miss you'
and I meant
it

but time
does not
stop

and the
world pulses
on around
me

too bright
and too
loud

the beginnings
of panic
when your
pillow is
empty

the way
my heart
hurts

each valve
faulty as
if disease

is wrapped
around my
core

I see your
face in the
night sky

a full moon
glowing over
empty streets

in the stars
that swell
and shrink

I am looking
for you
always

I am the
waves of
the ocean

beating
back to
you

Hold me, she said
don't fold under
the weight of
my heart

They are trawling
the sea bed for
clues, as if we are
simply a plane
to fall out of
the sky. Our
last kiss, spread
on meat trays,
our clasped hands
in body bags.

the fire that started
at our wingless
shoulder blades

proved fatal

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)

My mouth is made of glass
that breaks each time a word
hits it, my hands break out in
Boils each time a finger touches
their flesh, my eyes are made of waters,
that break like waves against the sand,
my ears are made of rocks from which
mermaids sing out, invitations to anyone,
my heart beats like a caged bird,
timid and alone, so utterly
alone

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

London, I turn to your fearless  face. A face that remembers fires and plagues. Blazing flames that I now wrap around myself to keep warm. As I walk, hand in hand with the river. I  taste the smoke of my cigarette, blown back into my face. I hold onto your size, your shape moulding into my soul. I take all of you into the cracks of my skin. Streets buzzing like an open wire. A cackle of noise that blurs into the background yet remains coloured. In your neon bright arms, I have built myself a home.

I want to find a black pebble
flat and smooth
like the one you gave me
years ago
when sirens were screaming
in my mind

I have no luck,
there is not a lot of it
about lately

I try to find closure
in the ocean,
knowing that if I write your
name in the sand
the tide will wash it
(wash you)
away

but I can’t bring myself to
pick up a knotted stick
and form those letters,
it’s as if I’ve momentarily forgotten
the alphabet
that you taught me in Spain

I don’t think there is closure
I don’t think it’s as simple as
drawing a line in the sand

We are all humans,
eating sweets from the
palms of our enemies

we are greedy, lustful,
animals. Swallowing air by
the gallon because it's free

our lungs turn black as
coal, black as a starless
night sky

in the garden of discontent,
before Eve tainted the taste
of apples

before Adam bit through the rubbery red skin, down to
the white flesh

taking hope into his mouth
and spitting it straight
back out

I sit on a beach
on a freezing December night,
the sun has gone down
pinks and purples and golds,
the waves are vicious
I pray that they consume me
to wrap their foam around my waist
and pull me under -
I run my fingers through golden sand
as silky as your hair, and I am transported
back to that last night together,
the hatred in your eyes when
you told me to leave, burns in my memory
every time I close my eyes,
and I didn’t question or argue
I didn’t plead or beg,
because I have known from an age
where I should simply have been
playing with dolls,
that I am difficult
that I am different
that I ultimately
impossible to love

The edges of one body blending into the bones of another

spreading like fire on a terrace of thatched roof houses

we are learning how to count in twos, in pairs

we are moulding into the shape
of a house where children run, barefoot

we are learning how to build ourselves out of ashes and fractions

out of crumbling teeth and rotten mouth kisses,

halitosis

My heart is racing
chasing dreams
falling over my
own feet as
I charge head
first into
the future
the present
merely window
dressing for a
soul that has
nowhere to
call home

Murderer
they called me
Murderess...

to take a life
into my pale,
sculptured hands

to mix bone
and blood
into a thick
paste

to shatter the heart
of a mother, herself
reaching into the
abyss in fear of

nothingness.

I did not tremble
from top to toe

my back arched, catlike
sensing danger

where there was only
love, taken from me

beaten, burnt, corrupted
until only this shell

remained.

I take God into account,
hold him to his word,
beg him to remember
that night when I was

six

when heaven and hell
mixed as my mouth
filled with sweat
and blood

the taste of fear
caressing my lips

murderous,

the shadow on the wall,
the whistle of wind
through long hair

I take, plunder, delve
into fields of red
Poppy's

remberence

dear God,
remember me

Ashes remember the fires
they once were,

the way that you remember
the taste of her black hair,
the casually complicated way
she parted her lips.

Fires do not think of themselves
extinct

they believe they'll glow and burn forever

but you know they don't
and she knew, she knew this

about you

They said I had my grandmother's eyes
Cynical and bright, never watery
Like theirs

I saw her once, baking bread,
Kneading dough with floury knuckles
Into the shapes of her children

Did I come from that batch?

Could I trace the crumbs back five generations
And see a man in Victorian dress treat a lady
The way she deserved to be treated

Is this who I am when I'm begging?

Bleeding on a bathroom floor, in the moments
When I swear I could reach out and touch God

Is this void theirs?

Chewing my fingernails, playing with the flesh
Between my teeth, tasting myself

Or when I haven't washed my hair in weeks
And my skin shakes against my bones
Like loose leaves clatter in the gutter

I have my grandmother's eyes

I have tasted war

in the acid gasps
and swollen glands

in the crunching of
crumbling teeth

in bruised knuckles that force
themselves fiercely down throats

in fingers dripping with saliva
and sugar

in the scent of bread baking
slowly in the kitchen

that has become my
battlefield

as a child, I drank
cherryade through strawberry
lace straws,

I remember the taste
of the first sugar
rush, innocent
and reckless

now, there is the morning
after, holding hands with
hangovers on commuter
trains

and in the bottom of glasses
and mirrors, truth shines

and although my drinks are
still red, the wine

reaches my heart, faster
and sits
in the place of
a lover

and the

crash

is no longer

cushioned

by something sweet

I learnt that night
that no amount
of love could
unbruise my
heart

he held me
as if I
were crystal
but I shattered
anyway

a kaleidoscope
of colours
twisting the
knife that

I plunged
into his
chest when
I said

I'm sorry
rolling away
from his
touch

another romance
blackened by
a memory

that lurks
like a creeper
in the bushes

it was
unexpected

we loved
unexpectedly

I am eating when you call.
I let the phone ring out and the answerphone click,

and flick you off, a speck of dust on my shoulder.

I treat you like an unpinned
grenadine, desperate to throw you into the crowd,

but fear makes me clutch you, tight. As I place the ***** of my feet on burning coals. One step, then another, mind over matter.

Until the words that we once held deep in our throats burst through the dam

and I walk into the sea loaded with rocks, drinking the salty ocean one gulp at a time, so I don't have to turn around and

face you

Your words
like corsets
tighten around
my chest

Please stay.
you say

But the pulse
of the street
outside beats
through my veins and

I can't

I conjure you,
out of yellowed newspapers
and matches.

I come to recognise the scent of you, through which you untie
the core of me

I swallow you down
as the hoards devour religions.

People banging on the doors of churches.

Swallowed up in scripture.

I wanted to see God
in the silver blades between your teeth.

To cut out your Adam's apple and place it between my lips.

Consuming your masculinity with a single, careless kiss.

Anatomy's foundations rocking like an antique chair.
Stripped wood that still sings of trees, chopped down in their prime.

This destruction of youth that should sicken me, thrills me to the bone.

Each blade of gentle green grass grows in the sunlight and I pick each daisy
as carefully as I pick my men.

Young men that touch silk sheets, glistening with sweat. I lick the knife, metal caressing metal, blood on
steal.

I am ready to receive him.

Even the stars
shake when I
speak your name,
a woman bursting
her heart,
red and raw,
arteries like arms
wrapping around
a wound, a bloom
of tulips
in my chest,
a cavity of
dirt, a wisp of
seaweed stretching
a lonely hand
into the ocean,
begging a wave
to answer

I imagine my body changing
Swelling, spreading, the edges
Of me never ending, flesh
Meeting flesh, lips locking,
Eyes tilting, red wine swirling
At the bottom of a glass

I imagine my skin melting,
Peeling back to the back
To the bone, rivers of
Veins running around the
Heart of me

I imagine holding you to me,
Blending our bones into
One

Imagine

Without sunlight you cannot grow a seed

yet I stand here, feet planted firmly on the ground

grass underfoot, unweeded and beautiful because of it

I do not need to lean towards some far flung favour of yellow

paint, precisely drawn across the sky

when I can feel the roots of ancient trees beneath my feet

the rejected apples that turn wasps wild with drink

I can eat rotten fruit until my mouth turns sour

bitter, bitterness, so often mistaken as a flaw in character

yet it is the only leg I have to stand on

and I shall not sink to my knees, quivering, for anyone

again

she undressed herself
for him

as one would undress
a wound

hopeful that the skin beneath
had healed

I am cautious of
your frail heart

I dare not
touch it with my
indelicate fingers

that weave time
as if it were
a thread I
could simply
unpick

if I went wrong

these are the offerings
of lost things,
toy cars and thimbles
that no one knew
what to do with

but you heart,
like the flesh
of the moon,
sits in the sky like
an echo

calling me home

It is morning and he -
wakes, slowly,
at a snails pace

another night conquered
another morning seen

I peel an orange for the smell,
I want my fingertips to be ripe
with flesh

the only skin I can touch
without bruising

I make coffee,
black with two sugars

we drink from chipped photo
mugs, our memories fading
as we wash and wash and
wash

them away

the doctor comes at 4
and checks his eyes

counts his pulse to the tick
of an old Grandfather clock

an antique heart, swollen

he tells me that he is before Lazarus,
and I hold no false hope, just his

gray hand, as I gently fold
back the creases in his skin
as they take the canulla

out

I wanted a man
to gasp at the heels
of my shoes,

I'd pick them for their colour
and become it,

as if sequins could stitch
to my soul and make it

shine

blue eyes dancing
with firelight

arches of ash
under which we shall

kiss

please, please take me home
swigging ***** from the bottle
on abandoned streets

grabbing me by the wrist
and flaunting my deepest
darkest secret to strangers
dressed in black

maybe I should have locked
the door, as you placed the first
touch on my frozen body

I don’t move, as you take my
innocence, inch by inch
with grotesque hands

please, please take me home
away from this house you’ve
bought me to with ulterior motives

I wake up a different girl
seeing the world through
a grey veil, all has turned to
dust and ashes and

I just want to go home

I think to myself, keep to myself
the secrets of sea-
water

ninety-nine percent salt
that covers a black-iced road

so that the cars don't slip and sway
like a tree branch, robbed of its leaves

I retain fluid, absorb every ounce, every morsel of memory

I nearly drowned once, my lungs
filled like a petrol tank, ten dollars

a gallon. I swirled down, down
to the ocean floor

a message in a blue bottle passed me,
containing a love plea

I plea, with the sea
let me go

let me walk on the sand again,
let me bury my feet in

glass. The sea answered me.
Spat me out like the pip of an apple

the core that no-one dare eat but the
strange boy who sits alone

in hand me down clothes, with
rope burnt wrists

I walk the sand again,
dragging my heals

burying my face, crying sea-
water

a near miss,
a boy eating an apple core

the sea wall stretching out
like an arm

in the morning. The secrets of sea-
water

buried in the sand

Who knows the darkness?  she says.

I do, a quiet voice, in my head.

the sinking feeling in my stomach when I crawl into an empty bed

the frozen fossils of lovers tossed loosely
on the floor

I claw

from the bottom of my black, holed well
the air escaping like a slither of silver

the bars to my cell

I am a monster without teeth, who feasts
on the loneliness of my thighs

and I am walking, step by step, with the beast

of depression and anxiety, it’s pen pal friend

who I have known for years, through letters

but it now has a body to tend

I crawl

like I’ve forgotten how to walk,
across cobblestones that feel like boulders
beneath my feet

I have forgotten to eat

What do you have to be sad about? She asks.

As if sadness is a currency,
exchanged between  haves and the
havenots

whilst I am in knots.

I get her point, I guess

but I did not choose this never ending death

He had a tattoo
instead of a knife or gun,
that much I knew.

I was naked and edible,
dark cherry lips, parted, legs
spread, open to anyone,
starved, famished.

I moulded into his touch,
fluttering and spluttering.

My ribcage was empty,
I killed my heart when I said,
'I don't want you
like that.'

The ashes are still hot.
When daylight breaks
they are sifted like
stones in search of
diamonds.

There is nothing precious.
Here.
Anymore.

His tattoo, pressed
against my *******,
rising and falling
as his tongue swallowed pieces
of myself I was yet
to taste.

As he plunders, I imagine
all the places I visited as a girl.

I wonder if I ever truly left
the photos where I was once young
and whole. Whole.

in a way I can never be again.

I wonder if they live inside me still,
inside these shattered bones.

Summer days of warm breezes,
writing my name into the sand,
cocooning the letters in hearts and never,
not once, thinking, 'I am alive.'

As I lay naked on this rough
carpet, bleeding and *******
over myself.

As I learn too late
that words said can exist
without meaning.

I think of those summers,
long ago.

I can never go back but, really,
I have never left.

One acid drop and I...

hallucinate the buildings
into beaches, the pavement
into the ocean

where we swam
naked, under stars,
whispering about
the hungry sky,

taking prisoners
of fire. You spoke
of the hierarchy
of flame, graded
by colour

(white flame is the hottest)

I placed a knife into the
hot white and passed it
onto you,

heard your flesh sizzle,
smelt your hair burn

killing the cells that touched me, plunged into my soft *******, pulled out my heart and stamped all over it

Mornings turn to noons
that turn to nights

and I am quite content
to wait through the cycle
of time for you

to serve up each hour
in the shattered bowl of
my heart

for you to eat,
for you to meet

me beneath the bridges
that I burnt finding my
way to you

sacred seconds to spend
on holding hands and
kissing through a storm.

It is my destiny to shake
my bones dry,

to carve initials into
rotten trees, nature's
disease

it is a sickness, it's true
to wait for you

You are hoping the rain will stop, as we wonder ideally across the sand dunes

a cliff to climb, a sea to swim in, a beach to build sand castles

and claim with a flag.

I have stopped hoping for it.

I surrender to the summer rain splashing my shoes,

to the sky that darkens through the lens of my camera

a macro shot of a crab, pinched and poised to

attack.

we think in lumps of time, all of us. Great lumps of time

defined by birthdays and religion.

Winter whispers in our ears, a whiff of cinnamon

in the air.

and though you hope to hold it back, with your fingers in the dam

I tell you, again, that we are not ruled by

the sea

These are the bones
he buried around my
bed

the fibula's of former
lovers, fractured to form
frames

to fit the shape of us

I used to think mysef
a Romany

reading palms
and wearing golden
bangles

layers of purples
pinks and reds

adorning my body

but your love
turned me into
nothing but

a Tinker

stealing purses
from unsuspecting
well dressed women

and pocket watches
from pinstriped suited
men

I never said I was
guiltless

but your love
made me nothing
but ashes in

the fire pit of
Hell

Today, our only question
is whiskey or wine,

fire or silk

mixing drinks
with you is like
mixing colours

out of nothing

I am -
splintered

edges rough and sharp
to the touch

so that no one dare
touch

I am -
fractured

my heart cracked from years of
lies

my eyes stained from years of
trying

this splintered, fractured soul of mine
aches

longing for something that it lost
a memory of human connection

that it buried, like seeds

bitter seeds, from which no flower shall

grow

She smiles through the smeared lipstick
Glass,
The smile of a lover torn away at the
Heart,
Sad and gentle, she fills the red outlines with
More,
Crimson circles of time touching
Flesh,
She empties the bottle into the
Glass,
Fills the amber nectar into her
Heart,
Warm, embracing, she yearns for
More,
For a hand to reach out and touch her
Flesh.

You have always tasted life
with my lips,

each night we spent
swapping secrets
under stars,

each kiss of my neck
that sent shivers of
electricity down
my spine,

every cigarette that
we shared between
shaking hands,

limbs unfolding like rose
petals, skin peeling
away at your touch
shredding me down
to the bone

where you stand,
watching and waiting

You have always tasted life
from my lips

Buildings have a language,
bricks laid with weathered hands
that once bake bread in their
Grandmother's kitchen, new face
wrinkled with kindness and
years,

the stones have stories
of wars, battles fought with
swords, blood blooming from
chests like flowers that have
been tendered with careful
green fingers,

walls rattle with memories.
whispers of forgotten love
that raged like wildfire for
a year, then died like summer
when autumn came and swept
away it's leaves in a red carpet
of indifference,

we cannot simply tear them down,
these bricks, these stones, these walls,
turn them into dust and blow them
into the sky, for then to catch on clouds
before scattering like ashes into the ether

we must love them, keep them,
treasure each crack, each nook
and cranny,

as if our lives, too, are
the very foundations
of castles

or the simplest
wishing well

Your mouth circles mine
hunting for the wildness that grows
like a vine in my throat
your jagged teeth cut into my tongue and you take what you find,
like a scavenger
a vile of blood, licked from my lips
the corner of a smile, burnt heart
the bread and bones of me

Breakfast is the hardest meal,

silver spoons scraping China bowls

coffee, black, sugared
swirling down into my ragged stomach

I want to burn down this kitchen
with it's stove and kettle that
unsettle me

floorboards scorched with my hot feet, a thin grey dressing gown that hangs

limply around my limbs

I want to sit at the breakfast table and scornfully scratch hearts into the wood

there is no love here

only bowls and spoons
kettles and stoves

I take tea in the afternoon
as I wait to hear his foot -
falls approaching

I am on
edge until they
kiss my ears in their
heavy booted sound

I add sugar cubes
distractedly, as my
mouth adjusts to
the taste of him

a heaviness on my
lips, upon my neck,
the scratch of a scarf
that looks softer

I imagine the scratch
of a vampire fang to be
worse, and breathe in and
out my prayers that at
least he is by my side
before nightfall

he is a thing of
paleness and impatience,
I am a woman who works
the dead into shapes
that speak

we both seek answers
but know they will not
be found in the arms of
each other

yet still,
our hearts beat
as one