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

You, there!
with three dogs wrapping
around you ankles

tell me. Do you see me?
Do you hear by
song? Silently sending
melodies. That reach out
like tendrils to the
heart  

strings. pulling,
pulling, the desperate tug
of a girl with
a day left to
live

on reflection
this year has held more grief than joy
but grief and joy and be held
in the same palm of your hand
and blossom into a new bloom of hope
it’s okay if all you did was survive
next year will be your year
to thrive

is love like silent stars
shining in a midnight sky
or crying moondust into
a gigantic ocean of pearls

or is it merely veins
twisting and untethering
between two hearts

it is for the skies and oceans to know
but for mere humans to feel

There is a part of me
so hidden, that a gentle
coaxing of a finger
is as meaningless to it
as a single stone that falls
in a storm

in its silence,
I grow,
weaker

I am shattered, like glass
surrounded now
with splinters

after all these years, I am
still trying to wash it
away

the constant splashing
of water on my
face

does nothing to cool it

hipbones echoing,
hollow and
weak

the taste of his lips
on my lips
has lingered

like a secret,
I drink it, deep
down into my
throat

consuming me

(and only me)

Hearts beat, still
when souls have been
stamped out

surrounded by plucked
flowers that have barely
bloomed

a garden of green stems
and sorrow is all that
is left

shattered glass that
pierces your flesh

a blood offering
is all that is left

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

My love for you is
intimated by the
stars, as I hold it
tight, against my
chest, the speed of
light carries it
away from me

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

a gun -
shot wound
to the heart

breathe - just
******* breathe

he won't lie
still, and the
red pool reaches
nearer

reaching like a
hand towards
me

at my feet

I stare at it
and remember
laughing

we didn't laugh often

I'm not like
that

but we would succumb
occasionally

I remember the feel
of his hair - the
way the roots
felt as I brushed
from them with
my fingers

my fingers remember
the touch of his
coat

the scratchy,
uncomfortable
fabric

why did he wear
the ******* thing?

the scarlet stain
has reached my toes
now

I fight the urge
to place my hand
in his

I need to focus
He needs to -

focus

please, just listen
to my voice

put your heartbeat
into it

into me

control

control

control

he is becoming
heart -
less

why has he
chosen me
to save him?

twice now

he says I matter
the most but it's
*******

he doesn't want me
he wants my
skills

to find a body
and fake
it

to wait years
no - two years
in silence so heavy
I feel like my lungs
have collapsed

and now to pull him
through - back through
the cavity in his chest

to force the blood
back into his breaking
body

whilst my hands
shake with fear

night terrors

and the shape of
his face as I
drag him

(back to life)

by the roots of
his hair

His gutting of me,
fishlike
a hook at the end of his finger
(curling)
& me
bare skinned at
his knees
the nakedness of
a child
innocent lines
& curves of
flesh. My
gapping thighs
withered
beyond the
cure of ***
& tone
death girls
place shells
to their ears
to hear the
roar of the
sea. A mighty
whitewashed
wave crashing
against the
shore
& in that
moment I
am shaking
on the end
of a line
at the
mercy of
the devouring
hands of
a man

A hospital roof
top – the world swelling
like a broken limb
beneath him

breathing

the air tastes
of car fumes,
***** – people
with their feet
covered in
the dust of
life

for a moment
my heart imagines
he is going to
jump

jump
away from the plan

I trust myself
enough not to
trust him

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

Hunger made you sink
to your knees,

sifting through the earth for
red berries that have fallen
from a blackbird's beak,

I bring water to quench
your thirst. How simple
an act and how
magnificent,

to think myself stronger
than famine,

strong enough to tame  
war torn cities into
sleeping dogs,

I am fire, light and air

the very elements of
existence

a supernova, burning up
a planet

I am the begining and
the end

of everything

You are the light that lingers
at dusk, pink skies blending
into the silhouettes of
ancient willow
trees

You are the taste of honey
in the morning, sweetly
kissing my lips, extracting
my dreams

You are the simple life
of wine and whispers ,
books read under a canvas
of leaves

You are the similes and metaphors
that make my own face
wrinkle and
cringe

The words that stick to my
teeth, and pull

You are me and,
sometimes,
I am you

It is winter
and I have had
no time to
prepare for it

tinsel tangled
around fake
trees

broken fairy lights
the flicker like the
wings of a trapped
butterfly

the smell of
cinnamon that
reminds me
of childhood

was I happy
back then?

was my heart
torn and troubled
with a quiet
discontent

do I remember
happiness?

I am sure it is
locked tight
somewhere
inside of me

a cage that
holds the ruins
of the past

it is cold and
wet, I am drenched
down to the bone

December shouts and screams
demanding my attention
like a crying, hungry baby

I am lost in its folds
a timeless tapestry
of snow and freezing toes

it repeats,
every year
like clockwork

and the cogs
are rusty and
creek as they turn

how many more years
can I stand it?

how many more
dreams of death
can I awaken from?

I fell for their promises,
the arrogant belief
that life begins again
as the clock strikes twelve

******* hell, it hurts
salt rubbed in an open
wound that people try
to fill with joy

I am breathless
and heavy with
the weight of
the future

when it feels
impossible to
imagine one

I walked with you,

feet stomping through muddy ground
stepping over fallen branches
that we forged into shapes

out of the bluebells
I heard your voice say

this is a moment
treasure it

I paced the floors, waiting

the entrails of my heart swarmed

the spot where we'd last kissed

a muscle memory, so ordinary

and ordinariness

will be the death

of us

She’s the kind of girl
who will play a sad song
when things are going well

when she is finally happy and settled in her skin

because she needs to remember
the sting of tears falling down her cheeks,
and the bitter blows to her heart

just in case

(just in case)

he’s another act in a tragedy
that even Shakespeare would never
have been able to conceive

I want to plant my lips
in your dark curls. Red lips,
like the buckled shoes of
a child. A life at the beginning.
A name still finding it's rhythm
on the tongue.

We are like children.
Testing out words for size.

How big is 'I love you?'
How heavy is 'goodbye?'

at one point
I couldn’t walk
five metres from
a car to a
hospital door -
way

starved for weeks
until hunger didn’t hurt,
until the numbers
blurred

at one point
I drank *****
out in the street,
drenched in rain

restrained by
two emergency
department security
guards who did not
understand why

I was smashing my
wrist into the
floor

at one point
I drank a pint
of water and made
myself sick

over and
over

rinse
repeat

I tried to die
afraid to live
scared of the
men who lurked
like spectres in
my dreams

they are the
cause of my
pain, of the
letters after
my name

a badge of
insanity

at one point
I hope to want
to live

Women tell me their stories.
things that ring like a bell;
an alarm bell, a warning.

What happened to me isn’t unique, I found
yet still. It is mine.

Lips, thighs, softness
hair, mouth, coarseness
*******. brains, burnt out

I can hear the blood pounding in my ears
as he goes down on me.
Down where I wither and die

These men are not monsters,
yet they loom with the rope of a hangman,
black hoods, black boots and hands
That throttle our throats, bringing death with them

They do not know that this is a relief
for our tongues to swell in mouths until we can no longer
breathe

We marry them, sometimes
thinking they won’t turn on us
that they will keep us warm and safe

We go to their beds, willingly
at first,but later we are forced
down onto the rough carpet,
where our thighs smart from the fabric,
the friction

Mostly, though
we hurry past them in the street
clutching our keys between our fingers
as they lurk in dark corners

But we cannot escape them
these men with the power to end our lives.

I talk to these women and find their stories stirring in me
each word filling me with courage
Yet we know, we all know, that sharing words is not enough
to stop these predators,
these sharks that hunger for our flesh and blood

we can only re-pin our dresses, make up our faces
and face them

as my fingers flicker through
the sleeping curves of your body
I find what I have always known to be true
you, and only you

as I arch my back to the moon
the splendid silver of the night a mirror
reflecting what I have always known to be true
you, and only you      

as I walk open armed into the ocean
swallowed by sea salt and tangled in mermaid hair
I am captured by what I have always known to be true
you, and only you

March is made of madness,

butterflies that flutter
against my brain, my
heart, a wasp in
a jar

my voice shakes,
I drink cheap cider
that burns my insides,
from dented cans
that cut my lips

earning war wounds
as I try to cover
my battle scars

sleep chases me
and I hide in doorways,
dressed in black and blending,
begging the flickering
orange streetlights
to swallow me

his serpents tongue
licks my ear

soft, quiet and deadly

the fruit I should never
have eaten rises in my throat,
like anger

threatening to flee

and I have no choice
but to swallow
it

Summer. A time of strawberries
and cream smears. All that time, grass licking my thighs through my cheap lemon dress.
I am as bitter as that lemon. Skin peeling, peeling, peeling
back, revealing segments of a girl. Bruised with memories and the moments where time stood still. I am bored, bored, bored out of my mind. Weeding, cutting back hedges and picking blackberries. Holding your hand as you shiver with a summer chill. I wipe the sweat from your brow, imagining I'm wiping away the years. Do you remember when we'd chop wood? Splinters in our fingers and rough calloused hands. I remember it well. Why ever did we stop? Building us a home. Is this just a pause? A tea break. We drink tea together, sometimes, over newspapers. I pretend, pouring milk, measuring out sugar. My hands covered in evidence. Dripping with your DNA. You don't know how easy it is to ******. To shoot. To poison. To stab at organs. Your swollen heart ceasing to beat under my fingers. Your liver leaking. Some do it with knifes, kindly. Others with a wrong name shouted in ecstasy. A wet towel on the bathroom floor. Kids screaming in the backseat of cars. I grieve at your funeral. I scatter your ashes on the moorland where we used to ****. My black dress catching in the branches of dead trees. I grieve. I practise looking mystical. Mythical. Solemn. I hold my head differently, now, and I am bored, bored, bored out of mind.

After years of wandering alone
hearing mountains moan into
the sunset, uninhabited beaches
spread into the ocean like the
arch of the moon

I stand at your door,
sopping wet and weary
back bent from carrying eighty
litre backpacks across ancient
roads that only the locals
knew

I said to myself, I have found me

as the roots of the trees arched
around my feet, their rough arms
folding around me, the earth
moving to the beat of my heart
the wild bird song stinging
my eyes with tears

I said to myself, I have found me

but you stand their
arms outstretched
the laces of your shoes still untied,
(and it still infuriates me!)
the smell of vegetables, rudely unplanted
roasting in a metal ***

as my head moulds into your shoulder
like tar

No, you say,
you found your way back to me

They came again
last night.

Eyes bulging
as the air was forced up
through their throats,
out through their
silent, screaming mouths.

The more I pressed,
the harder they kicked.
Muddy grass flying up into my face.

My veins are a chemical mess,
lust, lunacy and loathing
coursing from my heart
into my blood.
Filling my body up
in the absence
of love.

I can taste it,
as the bodies seep through the walls and windows

I can remember
the moment that
life left them.

I sat with you
whilst you chatted endlessly
about the beginnings of the universe
at midnight, over cold beers

and I found it so funny
that you never realised
that my universe
began with you

I am -
a woman of
science and skill

I am -
a collector
of facts and
absolutes

He is -
the anomaly

a cruel contamination

he says I
count and in
my mind I
imagine

not with my
head but my
heart

the rules of
fantasy are still
mine to learn

how far does it go?

does it
have edges?

I feel the edges
of his body blending
into the shape
of me

the taste of tobacco
of tea on his lips
that are now
my lips

I am -
a woman of
passion and
warmth

I am a woman
curled into the
crook of a man

There will be a moment
when time places it's hand
on your shoulder
and forces you to
turn and face it,

staring you down
like a dog, with a bite
that threatens to take
every drop of blood,
of life, that your skin
contains

you will not bleed
before you hit
the ground, limbs
spread at angles
no mathematician
would dare
to calculate

there will be a moment
when you swallow
the entire universe,
feel it's press against
your gut, urging
you to let it
go

touching the shape
of the air, feeling
each pocket close
and open, like a flower
against your cheek

on your way down
there will be
a moment

to finally breathe

the way I tread
on eggshells as
I run my fingers
across my body,

paper thin skin
that is agony
to touch

flesh that has
known fear, festering
hate and hysteria

to press too firmly
touch too deeply
know too closely

would be to
howl, werewolf
like, at the
moon

I accept my own weakness,
what choice do I have,
but to admit my weariness
and dimmed hope

the sky is dark and damp
drinking the light out of
each star, consuming the
flames that flicker
across the universe

I am breathless,
each breath has been
taken. Inspected,
deemed defieict

I have nothing but
the clothes on my back,
a loose white cotton dress
frayed and torn, dragged
back each time I tried
to run away

I will walk up one day,
in a pain perhaps so fierce
it shall sit in again molecule
of air, each pore of my skin

I sigh, I am alive
but less so I no
I know death is no
longer in reach

for years, sitting at
opposite ends of rooms,
of words, knowing that I
only had to reach out
my head to hold his

It's all gone now,
that company,
the hours of counting
down my breathes
one by one

I am alive, undoubtedly,
and I have no weakness
of health except what
burns in my heart,
which boils in my blood,

my lust

Across the pillow,
I stare at your sleeping
skin, wondering if it
will full todays
hunger

The distance between us roars,
oceans of salty waves washing over
skin and seas that stretch further
the the naked eye can see

She'd heard it said
that love was a scar
that stretched like
a smile, a cherry
red corner of
a mouth, pulled
wide, teeth
shattering as
they are revealed
individually,
white porcelain
cracking, and
lips barely moving
as they whisper
in time to a
heartbeat, beating
I love you

I live in dreams of desecrated graves

destruction and decay slipping into my hand
like a pearl

ocean born, ocean bound
my heart, a crashing wave

when it senses your smile
secret, meant only for me

and I would not share it with another
even if they tore my fingernails out

it is our code
and only
ours

my prize
and only
mine

By the time I was thirty,
I had carved fish with
butter knifes, licking
the sides clean,

I had chosen shoes
for the width of their
narrow heals and lipstick
for the hours it promised
to sit on your lips,

I had held the hand
of a child that wasn't
mine as it cried, and
wiped the wet mouth
of a stranger,

but I had never
felt the look
of a man
gut me

hook me,
helplessly,
and shake
out my
insides

until now

I am sleepwalking through
the depths of your heart,

the ghost of you hanging
like a noose around my neck,

I am no swan, no, not elegant
as gracelessly I float,

from shallow river to sea,
white waters, wild tides,

forever anchored by your lies

At the beginning we were separate entities, two bodies walking home as the sun rose. Dancing till five on cheap cider and rancid wine.

We took breakfast in a ***** cafe, the kind where the coffee is bitter and there's a filthy spoon in the sugar bowl. Where there's an ashtray on every table despite a smoking ban.

You took my hand in yours as we left, and I made myself small enough to fit inside that stern grip, moulded myself like a glove around your long fingers.

When I look back, I remember the smell of tulips, a sweetness hung in the air. I rooted myself into you. I dug down until the core of the Earth shuddered beneath me.

Once planted, you watered me, weeded me. Cut out the diseased leaves that stunted me. I grew at your command. Tall, like a prize winning sunflower. The yellow petals of Spring, awakening.

You'd smoke in the morning and talk softly. A throwaway comment of there being no God. I didn't believe you. For I had held God in my mouth as we kissed, relished the taste of the forbidden fruit on your tongue.

Yes. I believed. In a God that you didn't but I felt when you touched me, softly, the folds of our flesh meeting, our two bodies, our seperate entities becoming

one

The white flesh of your right arm
covers my bones, warms my
bones until the calcium
cackles, lost between
stations. It is winter
now and we burn
wood in a fire to dry
our rain soaked clothes.
Our umbrellas bent with
the weight of the wind.
A macabre statue
of plastic and metal,
a modern art exhibition.
We eat soups and stews,
vegetables and meat
melting into a ***, The
smell of it turning our lips
upwards into a smile. I
loved you in the autumn,
it's true, but it is only now
that I feel at home in the heat
of your soul.

a woman
of God

I try
to be

but sin
is in
the air

as much
as salt
ia in
sea

my lust
licks
the heart
of my
lips

there are
body parts
I am blind
of

the shame
of being
thirty five
and never
know the
touch of
a man

drawing
a map
of the
world
on my back
with his finger
in my sweat

the arch
of it
when his hand
casually marks
Africa

A woman of God,
I am not

But a woman,

a tender lover
my head folding
into his neck
as if the angles
had been calculated
exactly, beforehand

I am earless
in the face
of the battlefield
that every woman
crosses, every day

I am clever
a devourer of booka,
article, savagely attacking
tainted tabloid trash

I am a Godless woman,
but a thousand times more
a woman than God could make me

They say that to heal
you must pray to
God

but I am a lesser
form, a shattered
skeleton of a
girl

and all I know
is pain

the taste of the edges
of the wound

where the blood starts
to turn brown from the

air that I can never

breathe

& I wonder what they're scanning for,

the grey shadows of my mind projected into pictures,

yet not.

I wait in the small, green room
it's plastic chairs and **** stained floor,

they hand me two pills, one pink like an *****, an ***** failure,

one white like the sheet they wrap around me, turning me into a ghost,

yet not.

They'll write my name on a chart, an ink stain that will never wash off

a tick box. Did you swallow? Are they hiding under your tongue?

dissolving into a metal taste that burns

like the sun

yet not.

I will get walks on Tuesday's, twenty minutes of grass and air

that I will drink, my thirst unquenchable

I'll get in line, shuffle in baggy clothes, watch television with a glassy stare,

eyes white and wide, a girl trapped inside (almost)

yet not.

Your hands

reaching towards me in the morning

a sculpture Michelangelo

casted from beyond

the grave

We have lost sharing secrets at midnight
between our shadowed hearts dancing
patterns on black walls

always, we were chasing
darkness and now we have
been caught

up in the balance of time, losing
ourselves momentarily to the
light

Fear is strange. As a concept it motivates you, a driving force, as an emotion is paralyses you. The fear of being unable to move in itself makes your muscles work. Flexing. Clenching. The need to run. Escape. But you can't. You can't move. There's a war going on between mind and muscle, and in this conflict I am the only casualty.

I've always been running, never bothering to throw breadcrumbs behind, but I never knew what I was running from.

One morning, she grabbed me in her sleep, as if I was the only solid thing in the room, maybe in the world...

I never asked what she was dreaming about. I didn't reach out to her. Fear.

The day she slammed the car door behind her as she got out. It was embarrassing how annoyed I was. How absolutely, blindly ******* I was about it. I feel so bad about it now, looking back I feel bad about a lot of the **** we did, or I did, the pointless cruelty of it.

As I lie on the grass I feel the bladed reaching beneath my shirt. Itching. Every single blade of grass is blocking every single pore of my skin, as if insects are nesting. The air curves around my limbs, as if to accommodate for hers.

She must have felt it and a part of her must have felt more alive because of it. Isn't that such a cliche? Feeling more alive because you're dying. If you can see all of time folding in front of you, hear your past crash into the back of you... Would you break or put your foot down?

Her dress was that kind of orange colour that makes you feel slight sick if you stare at it for too long. It was funny the way the blood stains formed in circles. Perfect. Circles. Like a penny... It was still neat apart from a small tear at the hip...

She must have felt the ripple of the air across her skin as she stood there. It must have been like a blanket. Soft and cushiony. She could have wrapped herself in it. Protected herself.

Maybe she really did feel protected, by the air, from the fall. Maybe that's all anyone wants to feel. I don't think so, I stood there...

It was so black. Hard and hatefully black. I couldn't look down for long. It made me feel too small for the world. Everything grew around me, the pit spread out like a sheet beneath me, the air rippling, my skin itching.

It swallowed her. How could she stand there and not be altered by it? How could she walk away as the same person? Who would she be?

I move around the flat like a blind man. I don't know where the edges of anything are anymore. I don't know where the edges of my body start. The rooms are huge, so huge that even the silence echoes.

I feel inexplicably and overwhelmingly bored. People tell me how sorry they are but I've heard it all ready. People send cards with nice things written in them but I've read them all before. Every smell is the same. The perfume that lingers on her scarf is the same. I'll never be surprised again by the smell of something new. I will never smell anything except the last whispers of her.

All food tastes the same. All girls look the same. I stay the same. I look in the mirror and I can't believe how I still look like me. I can't understand why my heart is still covered by skin and bone and muscle when it's been ripped.... Ripped... Ripped out...

They told me that the platform was crowded, as they pushed styrofoam cups of **** brown water into my hands. 'Good' I say...

I've said the wrong thing again. You would think it would be people saying the wrong thing to me but it isn't. My mouth doesn't work in relation to my brain anymore. There's a delay, a time difference...

As I stand there, my heart eats itself, my lungs clench, my muscles twitch and the urge to take one more tiny step takes over my veins like a virus.

The speakers are broken but the woman's determined, in case it was an accident, in case she didn't know,

'High speed trains through this station.'

Starlight

unforgiving to our hearts,
as we drink cheap scotch on the porch

the smoke from our cigarettes twirling,
twirling into the night

the thick, black night sky
stretched like an arm upon waking

and mine are always, always
reaching over to embrace

you

I won't forget the night I learnt how to fight,
how I kicked my high-heeled feet and kissed the night

there were patterns in the sky,
from stars that weeped as I dried my eyes

he said I'll walk you home, and I said fine
I never thought that he'd be mine

or I'd be his, tied to his bed,
scarlet lips begging to be fed

I found my feet alright, that day
as I let him have his way

when he was done I felt like Pan,
one wish away from being a man

it was over, my heart stirred
and cursed the fact I was a girl

I look at his face
and try to read
the crimes that
live in the lines
of his skin,
the murders
that ripple
in the air
between us
and the love
that sits like
a forrest fire
inside me