All she needed
was to know that
he would awake up
next to her each
morning with a
coffee and a
smile,

knowing that it
would be exactly
the same tomorrow

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

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

I take you
into my mouth

pierce the purple
skin and expose

the tender flesh,
your yellow reminds

me of bruises,
thawing like snow

blind hands over
a coal fire

you are whole
and full

my tongue rippling
with expectation

the soft brush of
an uncharted

inch of you
against my stark

white skin. I am
broken and

bitter, but your
sweetness spreads

into my pores
like lava

and I explode
with everything

I've pressed into
my breast

every thorn, every
wound, healed

by the taste of
your plum

to the skinny girls
who taunted me for years
with your catcalling and put downs

please know you didn’t make me this way

**** it if you think I’m giving you that power
**** it if you think I will let that victory be yours

my brain is more complex, works deeper,  
than a simple desire to be YOU

believe me, I’ve flirted with it,
thinking you were all I ever wanted to be

but believe me now when I say that
you are not the cause of my empty plate

so run along and feed your ego elsewhere
because I refuse to feed it
by letting you believe

that I am the way I am
because I want to be one of you

In every whirlwind breath I take

in waves that contain
an absolute promise of freedom

in fire whose flames rise high
and tickle the sky

in forests that close in on me,
forcing me off course,
and leave my heart racing with panic

I long for your kiss
calming my lungs,
imagination and heart

I long for your kiss, completing me

Cold hands leave cold marks
on blue skin

I know this

my fingers tightly
sealed

in blue rubber

he smiles, across a body

across a thousand bodies I have searched for his smile

I have looked in cavities

and between bones

I have rooted for the living
amongst the dead
that smile, his smile

across bodies, telling stories

these are our stories

cold tables of metal

and hearts to match

we're the opposite

of love

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 was like thunder
roaring for a lover,

a kiss on the base of
my neck, a muzzled
breath.

The room spins,
a gutfull of red wine,
an open window, blinds
billowing in the wind.

You tamed me, my wild
soul, roaming for a
home.

A memory stirs at your
touch, hands slipping
under shirts.

It was hunger that
carried me,

a longing for flesh
and bones grinding,
quilt covers rising.

I am the eye of the storm,
silencing as your mouth
swallows mine and I rise

to meet you, flames
consuming my
heart.

I fumble like a
frightened bird
shaking, I try
to tell you

No

does it leave
my lips? A fierce
kiss and the
words are swallowed

Whole

and my body
with them, arms
and legs bending

Twisted

a tree branch
in a hurricane
what chance do
I stand?

lying beneath
you, my blood
trapped in your
bones

the world covered
in shadow, eyes
pleasing, thighs

Bleeding

You won't remember
this, darling, it will
be a story in your

Head

A fiction

A fraction of
a person

Cast out forever
from the

Whole

Thunder roars around me
as I lay curled under
thick covers -
a cotton cocoon
where I am safe and
slight -
I am not your
average less than
nothing girl -
the shape of a cross,
a lie wrapped in
layers of the truth -
I took myself to the
ocean one night,
bruised feet touching
the waves -
I stood, shakily as
they rolled through me,
rocking me back to
the past

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

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

Prozac killed the poet
with it's blister packs
of two times ten
every twenty eight days
taken twice a day
with water

& 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

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 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

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

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

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

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

You told me once that everyone
has a heart that

bleeds

yet, if you’re lucky,
you will find arms that wrap around you

acting like tourniquets

to stem the flow, so that you do not bleed

to death

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
not to trust
him

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 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

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

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

you trick my senses

into believing you are here

when really

we have never been so far

apart

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

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

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

We were strangers drifting
on a sea of chance

meetings in smoky clubs
hands slipped together like silk

stained coffee cups and sugar lumps
in my throat

and then the waves crashed
against our promises

of a future that was a double dare
to promise

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

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

I know -
the secret flower patches
where the fairies hide

play
dance
drink sugar water
and eat daisy petals

I am becoming
them, leaving a world

that bound me with bitterness,
and gagged me with guilt,
subdued me with shame

I am not that rough edged  world;

I am flowers and sugar
twirling and stories

I exist, differently,
and happily

under the secret flower patches

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

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

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

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

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 wish there had been a moment
between loss and grief

a moment to catch my breath
before I had to heal

because healing took energy
I did not have

I wish there had been a moment
to just say goodbye

because healing is messy,
and I don’t get enough time or grace now

to simply kiss you on your way

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 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

You can
start a fire
without knowing how
to build one

I am struck
by lightning
every time
our fingers
meet

I drink the
wine of your
sweat
as if I were
an alcoholic,
desperate for
that first sip
of liquor

knowing it
is destroying
their organs,
but unable to
stop reaching for
the bottle, or

the flesh

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

our love lies
battered on the ground
like the centre of a rose
left naked without
its petals

bitter whispers of
"I loved you more
that you loved
me"

I will call you
cruel, your
callous heart
wounding me
with goodbyes

I will call
you cruel

cruel

cruel

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)