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

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

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.

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

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

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)

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

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

As the oily substance hits my bloodstream

my insides shudder

concrete setting into the stem of
my brain

Peter Pan taps my window, inviting me to

fly

but I can barely walk

atleast

I am free of unlaced shoes

of licking blood from the corner of my mouth

bitten lips and chewed fingernails

seventy five milligrams
of sanity

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

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 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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 ****

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)

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

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

These are the poems that aren't about us,
or about love, but tell stories that weave
upon skin like silk, and echo back the
whispers that are kept within

twelve times yesterday,
I called you. between coffee -
breaks and

gossip

you never answered

today, I leave messages
that make me sound like
a lost child, a shrill scream
that shakes down the
wires

did you receive
it?

did you feel the edges of my body
become the edges of your
own?

your eyes were always bright
and brilliant, blue in the way that
the ocean is

but isn't

tomorrow, it will stop
I'll take my shoes off and run
wild with the winds and roars

of a silent

sea

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

We always kiss in
the dark, scared to
know if we keep
our eyes open

instead, I take in

(smell)

the scent of your
aftershave, mulling
like wine, into
my neck,

(taste)

a cigarette, taken
with coffee,

(hear)

the sound of
your teeth
clicking against
my teeth,

(feel)

the sweep of
your tongue
filling my
cavities

the movement
of four
embraces me

and in that blindness
my heart beats,
faster, as if
fierce love is as
simple as

darkness

when we wake, I trace
the lines of your lips
with my lips, cherry
flavoured and empty of
questions

This is her reflection
poisonous to herself
eyes meeting memories
and cracked glass that
threatens to break