You will triumph over the
battlefield of your brain

even when it’s clawing
white hot fingernails
behind your eyes

even when a scar seems
a million times more familiar
than a smile

(you will be okay, my darling)

you
will
be
okay

He told me I had old eyes

that had devoured an ocean
and skies of midnight blue

so deep, that he was scared
to tip his toe in the water

for fear of being consumed
by my ancient seas

Old poems are like old photographs
they are a snapshot of who you once were

a memory
an echo of a former self
that cannot be erased

loose and yellowed around the edges
or sealed behind a battered frame

you must take from them what you’ve learnt
and pour it into new, brilliant words

Bounced

a mother figure
to two, a name
on a Christmas card
to four

when I realised
I was still a
child

and bitterness
wasn't an
option

I grew up
like a broken
nose

out of joint

Bounced

at the service
there are tears
beside me

I imagine a
body burning
and feel
warm

the lick of flames
on gray skin

my indifference
grows like I
imagine the
fire roaring

behind the curtain

heating up

Bounced

the house is
empty and
smells

unusual

like something has
been left in there
too long

they are not
there now but
it lingers

I tried to take
her dresses but
she was thinner
as a girl than
I am now

jealously

is a feeling
I'm familiar with

and it's easier
to understand

Bounced

we are waiting
for a buyer

and I imagine
how it feels
to have a piece
of your heart
trapped in bricks
and mortar

Bounced

one time,
I wanted to ask her
how it felt to
take notes of
the war

if she'd ever thought
of waving a white
flag and crumbling

drowning in the
rubble rain of
The Blitz

I wanted to hear
her say something
human

so I could
visualise and
see a bit of
her in myself

Bounced

I'm still caught up
on the autopsy
like a piece of
fatty tissue on
a scalpel

and my thoughts
are metal and
cold

the number of
zeroes on a
cheque

Bounced

Bounced

a mother figure
to two, a name
on a Christmas card
to four

when I realised
I was still a
child

and bitterness
wasn't an
option

I grew up
like a broken
nose

out of joint

Bounced

at the service
there are tears
beside me

I imagine a
body burning
and feel
warm

the lick of flames
on gray skin

my indifference
grows like I
imagine the
fire roaring

behind the curtain

heating up

Bounced

the house is
empty and
smells

unusual

like something has
been left in there
too long

they are not
there now but
it lingers

I tried to take
her dresses but
she was thinner
as a girl than
I am now

jealously

is a feeling
I'm familiar with

and it's easier
to understand

Bounced

we are waiting
for a buyer

and I imagine
how it feels
to have a piece
of your heart
trapped in bricks
and mortar

Bounced

one time,
I wanted to ask her
how it felt to
take notes of
the war

if she'd ever thought
of waving a white
flag and crumbling

drowning in the
rubble rain of
The Blitz

I wanted to hear
her say something
human

so I could
visualise and
see a bit of
her in myself

Bounced

I'm still caught up
on the autopsy
like a piece of
fatty tissue on
a scalapal

and my thoughts
are metal and
cold

the number of
zeroes on a
cheque

Bounced

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

I love you,
without question or condition

I hear you,
like hummingbirds in my heart

I see you,
a lone star in a midnight sky

so bright that all the others simply
vanish into the blanket of the universe,

I feel you
when I’m pressing my fingerprints
into your thighs,

passing my identity onto you
so that we can become one,

one flesh
one star
one heart
one love

If I could hold everyone
I ever loved
ever kissed
ever touched
ever wanted forever with
in one heart

and let it rest in the palm
of my hand

I would come close to holding
the world

It’s hard to believe that a heatwave
has such a chill in the air,
the wind that carries a whisper
of your memory,
distorted now and distant

have I forgotten you on purpose?
is forgetting easier than remembering
how much I loved you
how much I miss you

Is denial my friend?
Washing away your name
as if it were the sea and I had
drawn it in the sand

the heat makes the flowers
wilt before their time
and I cannot bare to see it
to see you in a rose petal,
brown and withered

deny, forget, erase

but I cannot forget
the flaws and imperfections in you
that taught me how to be human

because I am flawed now,
scrambling in the dark
like a child lost in a maze

there is nothing I can do
to honour you enough
to thank you enough

forgetting is a pretty poor way
of repaying you
but I have to survive
I have to survive

because I am breaking
otherwise

My past is not yours
to play with,

my insecurities not yours
to doubt,

my weaknesses not yours
to exploit,

my temptations not yours
to tantalise,

I have shattered the bars of
us,

switched the light on to your
indecency,

grown a rage in my soul that threatens
to overspil,

I have broken up the beams of light
that lingered between our hearts,

seeing only in the dark,
blinded yet clear,

the world which once turned around you,
now spins to the beat of my

(and
only
my)

heart

Ink runs from the end of my fingers
as easily as blood trickles out
of a wound

spitting words that melt
in the air

teeth blackened by
the ashes of prose

I would swallow them
down if I could

but each one
bangs on the back
of my closed lips

begging to be
free

to fly off
my tongue
into nothing-
ness

He sunk
his teeth into
me

my body
still as the sky
and heavy as
lead

wrists shackled
above my head
a single breath
more than I dare

utter

I knew the taste
of blood and it
was my own

from biting my
cheek so hard
swallowing my
screams

he left me
empty as a
carcass and
just as alive

I had tasted death
with its bitter root

I had wished for it

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

the morning dew
that covers
our shoes
as we walk blindly
into another day
of opportunity

will become the
midnight rain
that drowns out
the sound
of the chances
we missed

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

It is morning and he -
wakes, slowly,
at a snails pace

another night conquered
another morning seen

I peel an orange for the smell,
I want my fingertips to be ripe
with flesh

the only skin I can touch
without bruising

I make coffee,
black with two sugars

we drink from chipped photo
mugs, our memories fading
as we wash and wash and
wash

them away

the doctor comes at 4
and checks his eyes

counts his pulse to the tick
of an old Grandfather clock

an antique heart, swollen

he tells me that he is before Lazarus,
and I hold no false hope, just his

gray hand, as I gently fold
back the creases in his skin
as they take the canulla

out

Your mouth opening as it takes in
the bitter sweetness of an orange's
flesh

peel littering the worktops that
your grandmother spent hours
scrubbing down

scrubbing until the very eye of
the oak starred back at her

we don't have time for such
arduous chores, we don't look
at wood in the same way

we do not respect it, until
the sky spits out a spark

and the trees that held the
oranges, burn down

what are we now?

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

Show me your heart

and I will show you my world

that pulsing *****

those bulging veins and arteries

each one a map that lead me back

home

sitting with my hand clasped in yours

empty beer bottles at our feet

and the sweet taste of belonging

on our tongues

I discovered then
that love was not
the clenching of a
heart, or the pattern
of a pulse in
double time

but the
emptiness of
the seat opposite
you at breakfast

and the bitter taste
of coffees laced with
goodbyes

I discovered then
that love was not
the clenching of a
heart, or the pattern
of a pulse in
double time

but the
emptiness of
the seat opposite
you at breakfast

and the bitter taste
of coffees laced with
goodbyes

Our love is fierce
and fearless

it blazes like the sun
and shimmers like the stars

our hearts are volcanoes
on the verge of erupting

lava that will spread
and cover the Earth

in our red hot
affection

Like Hercules
we were set tests
of character

building fires
that could warm
ice bitten fingers
that had plunged
through layers of
flesh, gutting out
a heart

hunting wild animals
with nothing but
hope and hunger
&

walking into the
ocean, taking on
one wave at a
time, one breath
of salty air at
a time

knowing the if we
fail, we will be
outcasts

of love

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

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

my lungs burn

heart ripped from my chest
love ripped from my heart

things look different,
through these tear stained eyes

a meadow of flowers
that we used to run through,
is now a wasteland of dying flowers

and a gentle hand once reaching out to me,
is now an angry claw,
ready to claim me as it’s own

as I was once love’s own
with you

I carry your memory like oxygen,
breathing in and out a pattern of
the past,

your face swirls like ripples on a lake,
the echo of a laugh dropped like a pebble
on its surface,

carrying hope in one half of my heart,
and grief in the other,
I walk to its new beat,

and your memory, like oxygen,
pulsing through my veins,
putting one one foot in front of the other

to who knows where, but always with

you

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 would have moved
mountains, with my bare
hands, if you'd asked me
too

instead my hands wrap,
tight, inside themselves,
fingers weaving patterns
with each wave of
my heart beat

aching, breaking with
each rise and fall,
quick paced and
frantic

as a child, you're told

- the devil makes work
for idle thumbs -

but you are just a man

Wandering amongst Oyster card
holders and paper faces, they aren’t
beautiful at all, but when was
life?

sit

as I drink red wine
from a dusted bottle

stay

as I trace our initials in the sand
with a gnarled brach of an oak tree

taste

the oysters they harvested
in this cool, winter month

(it is November,
so it is safe to eat them...)  

and take me

from the white tipped waves,
down to the black oblivion
of the ocean floor

your Egyptian sheets,
a sail for a ship
that never got to see
a new sunrise

I wonder what we will have
to show for our love
when we die

(Will we even die together?)

a handful of daisies
that are weeds to some
but never to us

we delighted in turning them
into chains, into planting them
amidst my blonde curls

(They will turn grey soon...)

our love letters
kept in a shoebox
tied tight shut
with a red ribbon

(They are for no one else’s eyes.)

maybe all we will have
is that shaking last kiss
as you place the gun on my temple
and pull

and then turn it on
yourself

lying crumpled together
in old age and misery
debt and alcohol
breathes

but together, my love
absolutely, painfully

together

do you want me to pretend?

happiness, spread like a beach
of broken glass,

each tiny little rock aches
with its own weight,

the hands that break me
wrinkled and chalklike,

they do not care about me.

do you want me to pretend?

sadness, like a line a boats
each one begging to leave their harbour,

each one carrying an anchor that will both
keep them stable and refuse to let them move,

the known and the unknown.

I will pretend, for you.

I am not bathed in black water,
I am not soaped in sandpaper,

I am content.

my heart is not carved in the shape
of pain,

it does not cry in agony at the slightest
touch,

I am happy.

For you.

I am happy.

pale and interesting
wilts under the August sun

each ray eradicating a joke, a charming tale

your skin ****** with heat and as it cracks
seeps through everything you tried to hide

a boring soul, a wandering eye, a fickle heart

I did not mean to burn you, darling
but you just weren’t interesting

to me

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

When Pandora slammed the lid shut
you smiled, smelling freedom

Inhuman

I sit, staring at the crack
where my mirror as
split

I say my name inside my head

I don't belong to it
now

It is heavy on my tongue
and I remember how my
ears received it, long ago

the cold blanket of winter
warms me like whiskey

its whiteness shields me

I wake up and my limbs
refuse too

the clock sticks
twice,
the time is right

yet I am never there
to see it

backwards, I walk through my life
and the path of pills that have
allowed me to step between
worlds, between walls

as if they were made
of paper

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

I wrapped myself
around you, like
molten gold wraps
around a mould

and sets

our lives were
lines that ran
parallel

until they met

I am a part of -

the Earth
the sky
the stars

they speak to me
in their infinite generosity

whisper words of comfort and hope
echo back the souls of all those I’ve loved

(and lost)

and in their gentles caress, I am at one -

with the moon
the soil
the air

I am stardust
I am fire

I am everything I cannot be
in daylight

there are parts
of myself that
are still in pain

a white hot
thread pulled tight
through my spine

I speak to them,
sometimes

soothe them with
a kindness they have
never known

but they will
always be
fragments

of my soul

that are forever
untouched

There’s no future in the past
so I carve out a path for myself
like an ancient scholar
carving lessons into stone
a path that leads me out
of the darkness
and into brilliant sunlight
I take my first steps like a child
always pushing
always dreaming
but despite it all
you are forever looking back

we are forever
falling back
into the ghosts
of who we
were

wrapping our wounds
in our history, as if
the past can heal
as much as it
can hurt

we are never
moving forwards
merely slipping softly
into the patterns
of yesterday

reject the peace offering

if in your heart you demand
bare bones, raw and reckless love

if you want their eyes to bleed
with red hot passion

when they gaze into yours

if you want their fingers to burn
when they touch you

because you, my darling, are on fire

reject the peace offering
if chaotic love sits easier in your soul

By the sun flooded window
a single rose opens like a hand

secrets that we carry like
bombs, detonate

shrapnel finds a home in our
hearts

bruised ribs break like the stem of a flower

in the hands of an impatient child

we walk knowingly into the ocean, collecting water in

our cupped hands. Letting it trickle away from us back into

the sea. We are part of a cycle now, in one simple, selfish act

we take life into our mouths when we kiss

twisting it between our teeth, tonguing it like an ulcer

wet, red lips that beg without
begging

a single rock can start an avalanche and we are

many. Heavy footed in the snow, we take death

into our mouths when we kiss, bite down hard into its

flesh. A peach that sits comfortably in a hand

ripe and ready before rotting. How do we know it's death

we're tasting? When the buds of life remain

unopened

The moon shines like a giant pearl
scurried away from the ocean
on the crest of a forbidden

wave

I would sit with you here, forever
my hand wrapped tightly
in the million promises

of yours

if you’d let me
if you’d let me

stay

I am forever searching
for the ones I’m grateful to have lost

rose tinted glasses that make
peasant lovers look like kings

the swirl of the past
distorting my memories of heartache
and broken promises

into jewels of truth and the safety
of the crook of your arm

but I must shed these glasses,
swim against the current of these whirlpools

if I am ever to keep hold of myself
if I am ever to move on from
bitter words and anger
into a new chapter of trust and sensitivity

Now we are sixty
five

we take walks in
the countryside

pretending to find
the air there
easier  

secretly, I wish for
the city

and the corrupted
cloud I had to

burst

to find you

We are all tiny pebbles
dropped into a river
making ripples that
will eventually reach
the ocean

You bleed the black ink that flows
from my
pen

but if I am to write a love song
I shall sing to you as you fall asleep

or a shattered heart letter that
I shall burn and never send

I
Don’t
Know
Anymore