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

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 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 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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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 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 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

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

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

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

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

she undressed herself
for him

as one would undress
a wound

hopeful that the skin beneath
had healed

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

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

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 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

It scares me when you smile at me,
white teeth remind me of scaling cliffs
pink lips are ribbons tied around a car crash tree

I am afraid of you, deathly afraid
as I wrap myself around you like a vine, holding you at your word

tightening the ropes around your heart as it beats out a rhythm to the pattern of my breaths

I hold each one in my mouth, circling it, like wine, into the crevasses
I spit it out, then
and forget the taste

but I can never forget
your pink lip, white teeth
smile

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

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.

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

I am sure I saw you once
before

at a bus stop, your mouth hanging down to the

ground

rain splashing at your feet, puddles growing like

secrets that are kept close for decades, only to burst

open when the dam cracks
when the heart

cracks

open, we are books to be ideally flicked through

numbered pages and squint to see words

words, I think in words now
testing the weight of them

in my mouth. I know the words
that hurt

the words that heal

I am healing myself, a poem blowing through an open

window

late nights hiding with a flashlight, pouring myself

into paragraphs

I am sure I saw you once
before

but the moment passed and
I crept away

sunk myself into the streets like a brick tied

to a body that walks into a
river, eyes closed

drunk on death dreams,
white eyes roll

backwards. Back to the start. Adulthood shedding itself

as the skin wrinkles

I am sure I saw you once
before

but I kept my heart clutched
behind my teeth

and opened wide for
no-one

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 fingers are long, wrinkles
running their length, their colour
vibrant, blues and purples,
overlapping like the feathers
of a brilliant bird

I am on the outside now,
looking in. I see myself
planting vegetables at
seventy, tulips and roses,
the dirt wraps around my hands
like a second skin

I shall gather a garden
to me, hide in the creases
of plants, the call of my
name shall shake tree
branches and yet
I shall not move

I will sit, filthy and
fragrant, fold in on myself
like a house of cards and
listen to the whisper
of the wind

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

Today, our only question
is whiskey or wine,

fire or silk

mixing drinks
with you is like
mixing colours

out of nothing

My skin cackles in the heat
black sand, like burning coals
to walk over, an ocean too still
to believe it is alive

This is the long drive home
the memory of a heartbeat on a
television screen, fading,
sits in the passenger seat

This is our nightly entertainment
we take dinner at six, our throats
hoarse from screaming silently
at stars, from asking God to
have mercy, from asking fate
to detour. Take a break, on us, we say,
but we do not pray

Anymore. What is prayer? But the dull rustling of thoughts, the sins of a mother who worked two jobs but couldn't make the rent that week.
What is prayer but the heavy thud
of a heart

a heartbeat. Breaking up over static,
signal failing, reception blurred. This is the end, so they say, 'do not resuscitate', my father signed his name in ink. In blood.

We drive. We do not cry. We walk across the fiery beach and drink from the the salt soaked sea, to feel, to prove,

We are alive.
We are alive.
We are alive.

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

The grass was tall
enough to hide me
from anyone

and I wrapped myself
up in it's long blades,
braiding them into
my hair, softly
tickling my skin

pulling daisies down to
the roots, my fingernails
shining with silver polish,
teasing magpies as
I dig

down into the earth,
turning up memories
and moments in the
chaos of soil

the past and present
mingling on my skin
as I dig, deeper,
greedily

listening to the scattered
songs of birds and
imagining how
I look to them

small and frantic

but strangely, I am not

I am calm, calmer

and the smell of buttercups
reminds me of childhood
games, of holding flowers
under chins, teasing
and tripping

moments, memories

pockets in time that the
voices haven't reached
and I relish them

counting them on
my fingers

as they play

and then, there are noises,
shouts, doors banging
and windows shaking

fingers clawing at
my throat and
yelling

spit

bloodstains on the cuffs
of my dress

and sirens

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

Tortured
My face
Contorted

The earth
Bending around
My bones

The shell
Of me
Cracked

Timeless
My skin
Ages

By the
Second

What of
The hollow
Crown

I wear
Around my
Head

Empty spaces
And echoes
Of yesterday

The future
Twisted like
A tree branch

In a hurricane

Eyes blacker
Than night
Skies

Starless and
The moon
Is cold

I am alone
Utterly

In the silence
Of 6AM

Does time
Heal all
Wounds

I don't think so

I think age
May tame
Them

But old
Hurts
Run like
Rivers

Of fire

Consuming
Everything

Eating me
To the
Bones

discoveries unfold,
into the folds of
my mind

and I swirled her teeth
and treachery around my mouth
like wine and spat them out

there is nothing left of us but
a quarter bottle of whiskey and
half a pack of tax free cigarettes

we smoke, two at a time,
choking back the cheap chemicals
as if they are our tears

and, my darling, I have cried for you, on stained and ***** sheets that I wrap, like a glove, around my trembling bones

taking the eye of the storm into my mouth, like a ripe plum, yellow flesh that taunts my tongue and I let

all of my other senses dull as I taste a mouthful

of you

Robbed of dreams
I sleep -
in silence

a quiet that starts to
hiss, snake like, at
my feet

fangs flinch at the
smallest twitch,
ready to bite off
more than I can

chew. I am a
woman, again, built
up and battling with
my soul

fierce fires of blood
shoot from the tips
of my fingers

stuck in a web. Oh God -
I pray, word by word
reaching the tip of my
forked, forsaken

tongue

God, plunge me into a sooth -
ing lethargy, from which
I do not want to

wake.

We talked of fuselage
floating on top of
an ocean

waves consuming
us as we frantically
tried to reach
out

lingering onto
life as if it was
the same thing
as love

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

There's a spot on your neck that I
love

a swollen redness that promises
adventure

an imperfection that teases as it
dances

I stare and stare, fingers itching to
touch

I reach out, palms sweating and
trembling

it feels nothing like I imagined and
yet

at the same time
everything

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

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

I entered the room
that you shared with a girl
whose hair was as gold
as honey, hiding a mind
as wild as a storm,
              
the night rattled against the door,
stars beating against the frame,
their fire desperate to burn
a hole through the wood,

possessed, deluded, she walked
the halls barefoot, talking to
the moon with it's face
white as arsenic and
just as deadly

and just when the stars
began to falter, she wavered
and turned, half smiling
and said,

'I fooled you all,

I fooled you,

yet again'

I am afraid of that which I cannot touch,

the stars that burst and spread out across an infinite sky

the fire that's too hot, blazing black coal in the hearth

the air that carries words, flower petals, blue birds and rain

the heart's pink pulse that dictates life (and death)

the stomach full of swallowed butterflies, beating brown wings against my guts

God

you