Uncharted territories, rain stained skies,
sea waves washing pebble beaches

We sit, hand in hand,
fingers finding hearts,
clenched like fists

We fools, we reckless fools,
shirt sleeves entwined,
trapped, like golden
braids of hair

Starlit shadows,
moving in a moment of time,
together

Or not

your fingerprints cannot be
wiped from my skin

the heart prints you left on my back
cannot be erased

the kisses you planted on my cheek
cannot be licked off

I am marked - yours
forever

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.'

Years pass and I remain
buried, no air to breathe
and my skin cracking
as it feeds on it's
own hollowness

When it comes down to it
I am the light that falls
That fails, as the tide rolls in
Where I am trapped in the body of
The favourite child, gone to seed
Turned black and blue with the weight
Of sadness and the knot in my
Stomach as I grow inch by
Inch into a shadow
Where I will stand in the mouth of
An angel singing and the voice will
Cut down to your
Bones

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

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

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

palm to palm
we sit, ghosts of
former lovers
hanging like last weeks
flowers between us

dead and disintegrating

I imagine it as
the sea, rough and
reckless, the salt
in the air turning
to sugar as I
sip it

slowly

You called it a race
to the stars, each one
bursting as we reached
its edges,  the whites of
their eyes becoming yellow,
sweeping the sky in
orange kisses,

and in those explosions
of colour and fire,
I realised that love
was chasing us

into nothingness

& I believed in God
as I covered your lips with mine

the thick cloak of incense smothering us, weak kneed from prayer,

sinking into stone,
the redness of our lips

the heavy gloss

washing my teeth with wine
enamel stained and

yellowing

two women, bending into the folds of each other's skin

& maybe we are God, two Eves and temptation, consumed

into the shape

of us

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

our love
is an illusion
of something
else

a love
of tenderness
and kindness

we kid ourselves
that we care
when really
we have grown
to hate

the sight of
each other

But then
in a moment
you were an un-
pinned butterfly

like cigarette smoke
chasing the stars

and the scent of you
made my heart
swell

pulsing red with longing
and beating, beating out
our names

I can hear my mother laughing,
as my father washes his filthy knuckles

I remember, the scene of what I thought was love

how she handed him his jacket
every morning
and how he kissed her cheek goodbye

the way slept together
their lungs synchronised
'Breath in, breath out'

and when he gave her the fat lip
because the brandy brand
was wrong

or because his shoes were ruined

I still thought,
as only a girl could

love is not without pain
but pain is not without love

some days I feel
as infinite as the
universe, burning
as brightly as
the sun, my soul
a scattering
of stars

and some days
my heart is
as black as
midnight,
hurting
as deeply
as the ocean

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

Hate - black hate -
moonless - starless
- deeper than your kisses
consumes me

what if this is really
all that love is

a limp handshake -
shattered illusions of
dreams

they still hound me.

Alice, you said -
what if it hurts?

What if makes your skin crawl?

What if? What if the trace of a fingernail
steals your soul and...

Emily, I said -
your soul is such an easy thing
to lose

As he stands there,
arms stretched out towards me
like a ripple reaching out
to meet the rest of the
ocean

I realise that I am the ocean,

when we met, eyes dazed over
from beer, fingers casually flicking
ash from our cigarettes onto the
pavement

we were two hearts wild
with loneliness, latching onto
each other like velcro,

and now I dare not pull us apart
and feel the friction, hear the ear
screeching sound of separating
two things designed to stick
together

Don't worry, darling
the ocean will be only a
memory, one day,

the wild waves a footnote
in the story of your
meandering life

we will meet occasionally,
drinking espressos in
the heart of London

imagining we are somewhere
(anywhere) else

but eventually, you will
forget me, and I will

not shake my limbs
into yours, worrying
about breaking the

skin. We are not
endless and forever
is now

Into the heart of you
is my journey

my map - a maze or arteries and veins

love is my compass

I bite my lips to taste blood,
so that I may know what I am
travelling through

my destination only to see you smile
one last time

one last sneering grin
that used to irritate the Hell out of me

only it doesn’t, now

forever is lie,
built on the idea that we will live

forever

now is a promise,
built on the knowledge that we

will not

I crave
to sing
my sadness
to sleep

suffocate it
with my
pillow

they tell me that
it's chemical

or that everyone
is sad

I am a child
in a summer
dress

a young girl
smeared in sugar
white powder clinging
to the edges of
my mouth

burn it
bury it

another pill?

go sit in
black chairs

and tell your
deepest
darkest
secrets

to a kind stranger
sitting opposite
you

take a train
take a plane

walk, stamp, squash
it into the smouldering
street

some people so like
the smell of
molten tarmac

as it sticks
to the soles
of shoes

an imprint
a remnant

a ghost

kiss

the shadows of the others

off my lips

my darling,

in the infinite paradox

of passion and pain

kiss me

deeply

and drink

the wine that makes

me drunk

on love

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

The trees sang our names
as if we were an ancient song,
shrouded in mystery and an infinite hope

the woods rattled with longing,
as our hearts danced beneath
a star splattered carpet

we were not unique, or new to these elements,
but it didn’t matter,

they held our love close
as if it were a newborn baby,
seeing a life unfurl as it gazed
into our bright blue eyes

as our souls cried out, primal,
for one more dance

I've heard people talk of
the power there is in
destroying something gentle,

but I think that I will always,
always, let voices of autumn
take me by the hand and
whisper secrets

and resist crunching leaves
with my feet

As your mouth moved
against mine I saw
new suns burning,
new plants rising,
sea mist dancing,
my whole world
folding into the
reflection of
your eyes

piece by piece
I built bricks
out of ashes,
cemented them
with hunger
so that they would
never be satisfied
standing still

my feet, like the roots of mighty oak trees
were planted firmly in the ground,
impatient with seeing the same view
I long to break free

but I can’t,
I can only grow tall
so that I might see a different one

It was the cruelest thing,
to be told you had to fall

(in love)

to hear that anything would do it,
that it was needless to be picky.

Do not wait for an animal
breath on your neck,

warm and wild
with freedom,

to be a stray woman, abandoned
on the shores of

unrequited lust. To be Godless,
yet pray, as you crawl

between sheets, his heat
rising like yeast beside you

beg, let me stay fearless
and upright,

as my teeth unhook, as I
once was

looking, looking, looking

(love)

Voices come and go
with the wind
a light breeze
spinning leaves
amber, scarlet, evergreen
I know I need to hear
you voice, with it's
hooks and snares
that clip my heart
I know I need to feel
your skin, your silky
touch that sends icy
shivers down my spine
I know I need to see
your eyes, haunted
hunted, hungry for me
I know. I know.

I know

I used to think
that writing
released my pain
and my shame

but all it does
it make it real

glaring back it me
inky black
on crisp white sheets of paper
that my pen
should never have
tarnished

I don’t even know
what release looks like

but I know I don’t want it
to look back
at me

like a reflection of words

I learnt the sweetness of the sun, that day

the way it’s rays bounced off my skin in
golden glowing glory

warming my half frozen blood

I was no longer a ghost,
eating fear to sustain me

(and sustain me, it did)

I was a mermaid,
coming to the surface of the sea
for a few sacred seconds

of sunlight

You can
start a fire
without knowing how
to build one

I want to be
like the heart
that beats in
your chest

thud, thud, thud

never knowing
that one day
it will

s
t
o
p

You can **** me, she said
but you can never ****
the fact that I still
love you

I am full of sins
that threaten
to fall from
my collar -
bone

they grip onto
this beam
of my body

these stranded secrets
of the skin,
that have nowhere
to go, nothing to do

except to hold, hold
onto the bar of my collar -
bone

Your hands

reaching towards me in the morning

a sculpture Michelangelo

casted from beyond

the grave

Imagine,
old bones

fed with milk
and memories

breaking

turning
into
dust

scattering
like ashes

falling like
the petals
pulled off
a flower
in Spring

I know that
I will be him

with songs
playing on
the canvas
Of my skull

counting down
days like
pennies

the worthless copper
in their pockets

the tips that
no-one would
take

You write love letters
to the cities you have visited
and fallen in love with

yet I stand here,
my hands shaking,
and empty of paper
marked with ink
by your hand

I am kneeling
on a cold floor
concrete eating into
my knees the sky opens and

I am shuddering in cold water
a bathtub full of freezing
water, counting down the seconds
till I become a ghost and

I am shaking in the corner
the ocean in front of me
as far as the eye can see is
blue seas and waves that wrap
like leaves around a tree bracnch and

I feel the glass under my feet
break like a heart, crystalised and
frozen and

I hear human voices pull me
backwards, one last stand,
one last throw of the dice and

I oblige
with my life,
with my very last breath and

I fall
into the warmth
of a whisper
a whimper
a bang

I know the storm shakes
between her bones, the
roars of oceans racing
home, the reach of
hands across yards of beaten
apple trees

scattered debris leads from
her heart to mine, and I
sail into the
eye

fearless

and cool

waving black clouds

being brave

I hear voices...
soft and delicate
guiding and guarding
that are mine, and mine
alone

I keep them close to my heart,
like lovers
caress them
whisper kindnesses
and promises to never betray them

and how could I?
these soft, sweet kisses from a world unknown
this loving embrace from a body
without
a
body

secrets shared in darkness
with only the flicker of a candle flame for warmth

I will keep you, sweet nothings,
mounting up to everything
that is mine, and mine alone

you trick my senses

into believing you are here

when really

we have never been so far

apart

I can't drink or smoke
when you leave

I leave the windows open
tempting a breeze
to bring in the scent
of flowers and summer
rain

They remind me
of you

the way that rain
falls onto a flower
and drips, drips
down into the
soil

the yellows
and oranges of
the petals
burn

our faces reflect
in the dirt and I know
that we'll never be
clean again

You forged my heart

and stamped it
on every lover’s lips

every act of authenticity
got lost

in your haste to make
quick bucks of love

Women of fire burn more
than the bridges that no longer serve them

they burn holes in the souls of their lovers

leaving them forever branded
with their spirit of flame

engulfing their hearts in passionate smoke,
so that they may choke on their very presence

even when are no longer there

whether their love is reciprocated

or not

It doesn't matter to me
but you still matter
the most

Through a fog of sleep
I feel you

turn your head
towards me in your
sleep

arms reaching through
the blankets

I am living,
bones brittle,
waterfalls of hair
soaking the pillows

dying for those quiet
moments in the dark
when I know you're
watching me

the moments when
I exist, like a shadow
eating sunlight, in your
eyes

I stand
with you
for you
even when
you go to war
against yourself

(especially when)

I see your heart breaking
love running through
your fingers like sand

I believe in you

stardust soul
you will drink
water from the
craters of the
moon

doing the impossible
dreaming the undreamable
living, daring, being

owning the space of the universe
that is designed only for you

It was different this time,
we were drifting together