Suicide, I thought,
would be my stage exit

(left)

until the pills got stuck in my throat, the doctors got stuck into my heart

pounding, their television screens bleeping

bringing me back
to Hell

when I was just a
step away

from Heaven

What mysterious still lurk in human bones,
what demons remain hidden, waiting, waiting
to pounce

and what Angels too, sing from muscled cages
tongues dipped in honey

what answers lay hidden in blood,
a flash of silver away from being
discovered

does my heart beat out a song or a warning

do my pink lungs map out a battle
or tell the secrets of everlasting life

It is life, she reminded herself,
when the moon shone black

Always life

My heart may crumble
in your hands
like Autumn leaves

but I am a Spring storm in waiting,
ready to drown yours in rain,
until it shrivels up and dies

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

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

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

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

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

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'

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.

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

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

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

I understand the world
best as a challenge
a fight to win
or lose
survivor. warrior.
beaten and bruised
I understand life
best as a puzzle
something to be
unpicked and
pondered until
the pieces merge
together into a
jigsaw, jagged and
incomplete. I'm panicking
now, can you feel it?
feel it burrowing into
you like a root?
I will plant myself there
and grow. from your
ash stained heart,
a tree of pink blossom
flowers, blown
away in summer
but pretty for a
brief spring

When I was small,
I ran sticks across railings
or else pointed them at strangers, threatening to shoot

I feigned innocence, as if the folds of my lemon dress wrapped themselves tight around me. Unfolding for no one.

Yet, that's not the truth. His cupped hands offering me sweet water, a drink from the cup of purgatory.

I opened for him. Cotton collapsing to the floor. Legs still and steady, breathe sticky with secrets.

He kissed me, a Judas kiss. As if I'd soon be hanging from a tree. A neck snapped, rope burnt and smoking.

I count the scars on his chest as my own crushes, the weight of a whiskey soul, singing me to sleep.

I transcend, a goddess of air, an angel with ***** blonde hair. As his mouth takes mine, acid tongue.

A school bell rings in the distance, cutting time into chunks, religiously.

And I wonder what it's like, to place meaning in these segments of hours. To count down days or name them.

The cold bites me. I shiver in a black coat and bite my blue lips.

Yet the sun would burn me if I let it. I must stick to the dark, bury my roots in the dirt and grow

(up)

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

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

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.

Their searching eyes devour me

starved, ribs opening the skin

like a dam busting a river

I am lying to myself, lying

when I say 'I love you'

I do not love, no, not like this

bare backed and pushed against a wall

begging, pleading, please,

a warning on my skin

red tape saying that I am

'fragile'

brown paper wrapping my bones

and a yellow hazard sign

hanging from my *******

I have tasted
air where wine
once was

sobriety, they call it

no more dancing drunk
and brainless

the battle of thought and
feeling

raging on

as they force feed black coffee
drenched in sugar

sweet, but sweat
like

I favour gin
with whispers of whiskey

my left leg shaking
stomach swollen

I feel my glands swell
swell, my eyes puff
out

my chest loosen as
my morals tighten

dissociated daydreams
fade and reality
sharpens

sobriety, they call it

the slow death of
knowingness

Your name has lingered
Too long on my lips
Bruised and chapped
Turning blue as the
Summer passes
Skipping autumn
Into winter
Where I am always
Hungry and
Wondering streets
That are endless
Yet lit only
In the middle
I hear your
Cry in my ear
And turn
To my face
To nothing
The taste of you
Still warms me
but I am
outside looking
in on a bed
freshly made
white cotton
sheets
and I don’t know
how to look
away from
it

This is not my war

this struggle of hearts,
fighting for dominance

thinking there can only be one winner,
because that’s what life has taught us

love has one winner,
and the winner, victorious,
takes the very soul of the loser,

but no, I will not play this game,
with my silver dagger,
shining sharp as the stars

I will not plunge it into any man,
nor allow it to be turned inward,
into my own heart

I will not fight you to the death

I will give our love to the moon,
in the hopes that she will bring peace
to your restless soul

God, I am not yet dead,
merely bleeding

from the corners of my mouth

a trickle of red wine,
stained chin

my body is not yet stiff,
it will still bend into the

arms of the right man.

I haven't eaten for days,
a stomach empty of substance

I contain nothing and yet
I am full

stretched skin, silver lines of
greed.

I asked for it, with my wondering hands,

the touch of a soft girl, folding
into my thighs like a castle of

cards. I have sinned beyond
forgiveness and I have nothing

to say. Remorseless, a cold
heart that is shaped like a fist,

a flash of coffee coated teeth
biting into an apple of flesh

God, I am not dead

(yet)

but you can no longer see me

you are the shadowed echo of a shapeshifter that once pulled at  the shackles of my sanity

the seasons change around us, autumn arrives, barely breathing. Those inclined to pray, pray pointlessly. We gather red leaves and pile them on top of a coffin of colour

I plan to travel. I get a wall map and some red pins, piercing every place I want to visit. This is the closest I have come to violence; the closest that most of us would

but I am not you, no, nor your passive peers. I take the throat of the Earth and shake it

oceans rise, sand swept, country boundaries knocking together like knees. I am asking for peace, don't get me wrong

but who can have that power and relinquish it, go back to stacking fruit and canned peas

I was the ground, air and water, but there was never any fire in me. I was terrified of the flames.

Fire burns and reduces things to ashes, ashes that I am forced to bathe in

the wind blows them into my eyes and I know I am no longer a friend of the overwhelming elements

just an oracle card floating on top of the sea

Through winters I wonder,
boots laced up high,
containing each
step as I follow
your footprints

home

Sometimes through the
silence, I hear your voice
whispering my name
a timid cat-call reaching
like a hand, nails clipped
like claws. I want to
respond to your
touch, to crumble
like soft rock beneath
your breath. Yet I
can't forget those
hours you weren't
there. Or the days
of empty whiskey
bottles and *****
coffee spoons. I
used to pray to
God for you to
come back to me.
But I no longer
believe in miracles.
No. Just the awful
edges of a word,
a hand, a memory.

Love at first sight they called it -
love

as if it could be built in a second, hot blooded and wild

reckless of the heart, now clear of the cage of ribs

rippling back to it's ancestors,
who would tell it to slow down,
to wait

but there is not patience in sight. Hungry to see more skin,
soft as cashmere

if you call it love, beware.
semantics have stolen the hearts
of lesser men

You have rolled away
from me - in your
sleep, a nightmare
that lives inside
the person next
to you

and not in your
head -no, you
dream, still

a beach, an empty
bar - people
reading over
cold coffee,

a quiet room.

Our room is so
loud - thunderous
roars of regret

hurricanes trapping
our hearts

not touching,
ever

as if your skin
is flames

as if those flames
have wings

that could fly
into my soul

and burn, burn
burn

leaving me a pile
of ashes

and hate

(thick, black
hate)

The tulips grew
under a patch of shade,
half warmed by the sun
yet still, protected

flowers used to mean
stuffed noses and watery
eyes. I never looked at
one through a clear lens

we would sit out in
the garden, the gentle
buzzing of heat, electricity
in the air. The oncoming
storm

now, roses are red
beasts that bite like
a vampire, drawing
blood into the stifled,
stagnant earth

I wait for frosts
that freeze,
turning green grass
to the white blades
of winter

the unforgiving morning
chill, robins perched on
iron railings that snap
like a steel rod,
submerged in
liquid nitrogen

I am callous and
cruel. I do not look
at the world in
wonder. I am
distant and dull

but I can't help but think
of the tulips, how they
are half hidden in
darkness, yet still

grow

A black voice,
thick with the promise of a new life

a better world

enters me

I am that world
I am that voice

sifting through brown earth
with my bitten fingernails

I explore
hungry for treasure

and tomorrows

but I am just a smuggler
intent on bringing

the past with me

land sharks

that follow the scent of blood

and I am always bleeding

I rejected myself
at seventeen,

twisting my fingers
around a half-smoked
cigarette

my eyes turned red
from fear, blown
pupils,

I wanted to inhabit
it all, to press my
hands into my

soft thighs, like he did,
taking my hands and
holding

them tight,
I did not struggle

or shout. I was
trapped in the
amber of

my mind, between
the legs of a thorough
bred, respected and

encouraged.

No, I could not tell,
let that snake crawl
from my mouth.

Instead it grips
around my chords,
humming gently like a bird,

the caged creature that
I have become. I

did not want to
own myself,
to shout or write
my name

consumed by the
stench of silence,
quiet deeds that
are nameless,

emerging from the
caverns of lust

Wild colours of rage
stir in my heart
when our lips
meet

months back
we were neutral
blue

slowly
the yellow of me
wrapped

around the green
Earth of
you

& now brown
live wire wraps
around my tongue

& I can taste
the electricity
of love

I take you by the
elbow, hold onto you
like cherry blossom clings
to a tree in spring, only
to shed itself, scatter in
the wind when summer
comes

a light breeze blowing
as we sit next to the
lake, threading dandelions
into necklaces because
that yellow **** is
all we have
to pick

I am sure the face
of that deathly still
water imprinted itself
on your heart that day,
with the sky forget me -
not blue, shining down
on us,

the sun, licking our bare
arms, as if we are
the only reason for its
flames

moonlight gleams like pearls across
your chest, stars dancing, imprinting dots
upon your naked flesh

and I could not stand the sight of it,
so I stepped out, barefoot into the night

and I don't know where I'm going
but I'll just keep on walking
until the darkness is behind me

I miss sharing bathtubs
with you, the way our
fingers linked together
to form webs of skin
that stopped our hearts
slipping, like stones
beneath the surface

I heard that drowning
was the worst way
to go. The way that
skin wrinkles away
from the bone in
shades of blues
and grays

The subtle difference
between immersion
and submersion,

the line between trying
to restart a heart or
leaving a chest cavity
to fill with waves

life's oceans are
endless in their
meetings with
death

and some hearts
are meant to
cross the sea

They say that you should build memories

sepia photographs and inky fingerprints

a box hidden under a bed, gathering dust

a stash of dried flowers in a bra

I say I am building something stronger

with the way he looks at me as if I am the

sunset

a warm skyscrape of orange and red, a golden glow

that radiates

a rage, that will spread from my pink heart

into the cracks

a burning pit of coals, flames that flicker and

die

I am building...

building

building

hope

One by one
our memories
will become
boxed photographs
and these colours
will fade like
stars, disappearing
at daybreak

He came to me,
bloodied and broken
and for once I saw
the beating heart
beneath the shell
the touch of his
cheek beneath
the bone
the quiver of his
hand upon my
shirt and the
look in his
eyes as I
unwrapped

For him, love
was a river of
blue veins running
like rivers under
her skin

In the fullness
of your kiss

I am

the taste of
honey licked
from teaspoons,

the feel of
clean sheets
on freshly
washed skin,

the smell of
cut grass that
sticks to the skin
of my back,

the sight of
mountains moving
as my fingers
draw their own
landscapes,

and the sound
of white waves
softly whispering
songs of the
ocean

Through all your niceties
I see the devil that you
hide

I have felt it
inside of
me

moving to a beat
beyond my range
of hearing

sweat soaked skin
that crawled on
top of me

tattooed with Japanese
as if you were
a native

of any land
but fear

we spend our evenings
taking long drags of
expensive cigarettes
and shots of single
malt whiskey, oblivious
to the yellowing of our skin
and liver, you place your
hands over my hands
as I tremble in the cold air,
stretching our limbs towards
the sky,  as if we our
soaking in starlight

empathy

our hearts twist in torment
over who is most deserving of it

the child washed up on a beach
or the bleeding teenager carrying
a secret that can never be told

it seems impossible to us
that we can give our kindness

to more than our arms can reach
to more than our eyes can see

but we are all ticking time bombs
of love, the explosion will come

and darkness cannot outlast a sun
as ferocious as a bleeding, human

heart

Teach me how to talk with God,

I am ready. Kneeling. Knees shaking on a frozen floor

the imprint of mosaic tiles
shining white

like light

I know how to beg, I say
I have pleaded with

a boy

to stop as he became a man
before my eyes

(between my thighs)

I can howl. I can pray,
the moon simply bait for

my soul.

Teach me how to love through
hymns

a simple progression of chords
that stir

the snake around my heart

I have eaten the apple more than once, more than

anyone

still, I can learn

I can learn

teach me how to talk with God

(I'll learn)

I have given each part of my
heart a name

attached it to a memory and
age

this one is seven, cutting off
the blonde hair of Barbie dolls
and painting in the plastic, fleshless scalp with my
wax crayons

now she is eleven, anxious walks
from school, skipping self consciously, aware, painfully
aware of everything

the size of her fists clenched
in fear against her palms,
the length of her nails scratching
out moments so that they
pass

(faster)

now, I am ageless,
nameless - I don't belong
to anyone, not even to
myself

and it is better this way,
to be dragging my knees over
the glass of a shattered whiskey
glass

crawling, the dirt is where I
belong now, it is where I
nest - and the state of my
skin is nothing

nothing compared to the torn fabric of my past

aged seventeen and bro-
ken

cheap *****,
dangerously cheap
*****

a spare room, is where my body is hijacked, and the very core of him
becomes the core of me

as he takes me,
piece by bloodied piece

until there is
nothing left
of a girl

no hearts,
no parts,
no names

the bitterness,
the knowledge,
that it was ***
that broke me

and that only ***
can make me
whole again

The curves of your sleeping body
leave me on

tenterhooks -

the space between dreams
and waking

a pause -

the arch of your back shining
like the moon

translucent -

a slice of time preserved in the
maze of my

memory

Blood woman -

take your hands off my throat

for lack of breath

is a side effect

of wanting you

and I can’t breathe

for trying to tell you

that this lust is

killing me

Rain is the language of love
and I am soaked down to my skin,
my dress sticking to me like a second skin,
flesh heart, ripped out and drowned,
a heart that has grown roots
around you

You can break
my skin with your
teeth and let
the blood sink
in like a gentle
whisper of love
across an open
sea

along the road of disregard

I walked, hand in hand with destiny

teasing it to tell my stories end

greeted only with silence

and solemn vows

to keep placing one foot

in front of the other

until we reached our journey’s end

where my past flashed before my eyes

before making peace with every shard

of shame