Star shaped bullets

fired from the night sky’s rifle

murdering the sins of daylight

what must never be seen under the sun

destroyed in a passionate blaze

star shaped bullets

footprints on the moon

our kisses and confessions

will all be over soon

You can’t start a fire if your world
is made of paper

the pages of books that have been read so often the ink has stuck to your fingertips

you have tried to wash it off but it is
permanent, now

evidence of words you will never
be able to forget,

those words of loneliness that
ache in your heart

you can’t start a fire
if no one is waiting to pull you out of
the flames

I close my eyes and imagine
filling the ocean between us
with stones

stepping, one by one, over the water

as a child, I would skim pebbles with my left hand

disadvantaged and weak

I am now as I was back then
unable to reach the better half

of me

I am forever treading on the footprints
I have left, on the paths
I have already walked,

leaving breadcrumbs behind me,
as I navigate the impossible forest
of life,

at dusk, my shoes shine like diamonds,
as they retrace every step
that leads me home, and back

to you

Your voice calls in the night

stirring the silence of my cigarettes and coffee

I have not slept in days, for your hauntings

leave me questioning everything

every kiss
every “I love you”
every goodbye

did I mean that last goodbye?

or does my heart still grow under your touch

the storm
shakes my
soul

like the roaring
wind shakes
the oak tree

to its roots

its thunder
steals my
heart

like the
waves of the
wild ocean

engulf the
shore

I have known
terror and
rage

and sat hand
in hand with
misery

yet I would
not trade a
single moment

for a still
heart

Suffering is an art form

Like everything I have ever done
I have mastered it

The slow murmur of movement
Dogged by depression

The hummingbird’s frantic song
Of anxiety

The drifting of days marked only
By the ticking of a broken watch

I am war
And famine
And disease

For as long as I have breathed air
It has been poisonous

A toxic oxygen

I have learnt the art of dying
Without death

The finality of it never quite succeeding
The motion of my desire for it

I want to purge my body of the filth
That has been inflicted on it

Trauma that seems impossible to carry
On my shoulders

I am a tree grown from a bitter root
Planted into the ground as an afterthought

My braches twisted, leaves that will never know
The brilliant colours of autumn

But I stand, still
Weathered and beaten and broken

Still, I stand

We have a love
that spreads out
across the constellations

each star a pinprick
of memory

a touch
a kiss
the lingering feel
of your fingers
running through my hair

the sun a burning siren
to our hearts, so that we
are never lost, never
straying too far apart

we hold reality
in the palm of our hands

weaving stories like
stitches into the
fabric of time

we will watch
as the universe burns

safe in the knowledge
that we have immortalised
our love

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

the worst
is whirling round
my mind
I hardly dare
take a breath
in case it is
my last
my heart is
beating out of
time
my pulse quickens
with every blackened
thought
what am I now
but a bag of nerves
fraught and fragile
as crystal
I have written
my life to a
stop

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

our hearts are
sleeping storms
waiting for the
sky to open
its wide jaw
and swallow
them completely

we have spent
nights with only
the stars for
company

we are
powerless
in the path
of thunder

but our souls
will thaw in
the sunlight
that follows

darkness is only
a temporary
state

the hours
a cycle

and we
will not
be stuck
in one
minute

forever

If you were thunder
I’d listen at my windows
as they shake

and deep down inside
I’d feel that roar
and something
would stir to its call

If you were lightning
I’d stick my chest out to the sky
hoping for you to strike my heart

that bolt reviving an *****
long dead to the world
creating live in me again

when you are a storm
my body rides it out
powerfully in tune
with its eye

speaking softly on rocks

that cut our thighs through our jeans

the contrast not going unnoticed

but this is how it is for us, always

a painful contradiction of love and hate

in the same breath

a swelling heart, deflating in a second

but we would not be lovers

if love was a straight line

(anyway)

At your side
I feel like a stranger
to love

my heart skipping
beats

my breath
catching in my
threat

you have awoken
the ghost of
my soul

and now I am
searching the sky
for patterns that mark out
our future

hands clasped tightly
entwined, two bodies
dissolving into one

in your arms
I feel like a stranger
to myself

She warned me against falling freely
into the arms of strangers,
but I would always run, head first, into them

going from catastrophe to catastrophe,
heartbreak to heartbreak,
I learnt quickly how unkind and cruel
strangers could be,

but there were a few,
a glimmering, shining few,
amongst them,

who healed my wounds with whispers of
“you’re safe now”

and held me tightly,
not so that I couldn’t breathe,

but so that I knew my breath
would always be met by
another’s

I took your strawberry jam secrets
into my mouth,
and let their sweetness rot my teeth

sugar stained lips, a lingering kiss,

I’d burn bridges for you,
without a glance over my shoulder,

walk hot coals, and relish the blisters,

but letting your strawberry jam secrets
swirl on my tongue

is perhaps the greatest way that I can say

“I’m here for you, darling.”

It was a long time ago, years
(or maybe it wasn't)

time blurs and blends
into the folds of my mind

a trapped moment, a decade
long howl at the moon

I mean to say, it was that day
that we visited the lake

the water reflected the sky
so perfectly in the sunlight

distorted, things are bigger
when we look back at them
(or smaller, maybe)

the wings of a blackbird spreading,
it's muzzled song

I kept a pocket of light in my hand
and held it out to you

you drank from the cusp, deeply
your lips glistened with it

I licked off the sugared
strawberry juice

that gathered at the corners of
your mouth

it dripped down my chin
red, as fire

and twice as hot
(or maybe not)

I have been here
a hundred times,
where the walls shake
and shrink around
us. oceans. woods.
and skies spinning
out of reach. out
of control but
destiny has it's
own map and
words that
weep like ink
black. bleeding.
where do the
trees end? the
leaves that rip
beneath my
feet. and I am
the air. the soil.
the orange red
flame that dances
from branch to
branch. spreading.
smoking. choking.
devouring.

I have been here
a hundred times,
where the walls shake
and shrink around
us. oceans. woods.
and skies spinning
out of reach. out
of control but
destiny has it's
own map and
words that
weep like ink
black. bleeding.
where do the
trees end? the
leaves that rip
beneath my
feet. and I am
the air. the soil.
the orange red
flame that dances
from branch to
branch. spreading.
smoking. choking.
devouring.

we leave a trail of sugar

with our fingers

on everything we touch

contaminating the surface

of the Earth

with sweetness

as our own teeth

rot

Sugar has grown on me,
what once sat untouched in delicate china, is now heaped
spoonful after spoonful,
into my tea

the sticky poison clamping
my tongue to the roof of
my mouth

why?

I guess I stopped feeling 'sweet enough', I felt like I'd lost my audience, who would clammer and chant my name until

nothing

silence piercing my ears with needles, where the **** were the cheers? The applause?

I am a broken bird, fallen from my perch to the dusty floor of my cage. I utter not the slightest moan,

sugar,

I crave.

Your breath is like honey,
a warm trickle on the back
of my neck, your kisses
sweet and deep as the
ocean

I have a craving for
sugar now, an insatiable
sweet tooth, mouth open
wide and ready to
devour

one more touch and
I am transformed into
something more than
just a woman

dressed in rags
and begging for one
more mysterious
meeting of lips

Your eyes are soft in the morning
Like dew

Wet with the sorrow of the goodbyes
Of the night before

Your smile echoes in the faces of everyone around me
I can’t look at anyone anymore

Without thinking of you

A memory stirred like sugar lumps
Sweet and sickly

In the bottom of the cup of my heart

We pick at
the stitches of
time, as if they
will come lose
in our fingers
if we just pull
hard enough,
but there is
strength in
wounded souls
that shatters
glass as if it
is made of
sugar paper

We danced in a summer haze
white wine and sweat
seeping from our pores

the fire flies bared witness
to our eyes meeting
for the first time

our hands trembling
as they touched
your fingers brushing
my brushed cotton
dress

sun kissed and
senseless with
longing

desperate to live in the moment
for once
but the thought of a cruel
oncoming autumn

constantly lurking in
the back of our minds

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.

In summer,
we wait for the green leaves
to turn brown

the rolling motion
of our lives, trapped
in the changing of
the seasons

we wait, we wait

for the crisp mornings to dawn,
and afternoons with hands
wrapped around steaming
mugs of tea

deep conversations
across kitchen tables
at 3am - waiting for the
world to wake

be certain what you
wish for, is not just the end
of that terrible sensation
of prickling heat
on flesh

I watched the squares
on my red checked dress
every play time
as he sat next to me
on the freshly cut grass

the smell of it, eating up
my senses, consuming me

I counted the dates
on the calendar
above the teachers head
every time we were made
to sit together

how one number can roll
onto the next without
ceremony, without being
noticed

I wasn't noticed
only bty him

at nine, you don't understand
what a boys hand down your pants means

you don't understand why it makes
you feel sick,

why it makes you cry yourself to sleep
at night,

you tolerate it, so sure that
this is the way the world works

I was taught to fear men, before I understood fear,
before I understood men

the seeds that were planted in me, rotten, no fruit
would ever grow, no flowers bloom

I would remain tight, in the bud
for a long time

maybe forever

I am waiting for the right kind of rain

those sun bleached days
are mere memories now

our hearts squeezed like a sponge
until they ran dry

kisses on tiptoes with sand
scorching our feet

are now drops in an infinite ocean
of dark blue - to

black

like a depraved, wild thing
I ripped my heart from my chest
and slammed it on the floor

“there!”
I said!

do your ******* worst

for I am no longer tied
to all that once kept me alive

I will rise from the dirt
like a sunflower

growing, growing, reaching
for the light

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

There is an empty bird cage
where my heart should be

it flew the nest
when it saw you

your sunflower heart, tempting it
to stray

enticing it
to stay

yellow glowed contentment
radiates

from this simple red
part of me

creating a golden union
that does not need tainting

with forevers

I am praying that the sun stays out
twenty four hours of tears
dried on my eyes lashes
sticking my lids together, like glue
so that I can only see a slither of difference
between light and shade

I don't want to be left alone with the night

We dig our graves with our fingernails,
imprinting the memory of the soil to them

to be able to claw our way back out again

when death wraps us around His teeth
and sinks them into our despairing necks,

people ask me;

“did you fight to the death?”

and I blink, not understanding the point
they are trying to make,

or else wondering if they are asking
to see the documented photos of my injuries,

“I would rather die!”
they say,

but I know how desperately
you want to stay alive

when a fist meets your face
and a hand smothers your mouth

and you can’t breathe

and you don’t believe in God,
but you pray anyway

Do. Not. Let. Me. Die. Here.

Please,

don’t

Death’s jaws will take you,
but you know that soil, now

and you can climb,
dear God girl, you can crawl

inch by inch

into the sunlight

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

They say that everybody
wakes up to the same sun,
but grief will leave its rays
blistering your skin with
old memories that have
nowhere else to go,
leave its light blinding you
as you hide in darkness,
leave its warmth freezing you
as you shake, bones banging
in a pit of cold despair,

grief does not allow you to wake
to the same sun, but life lingers
and one day that sun will rise once
more for you, brilliant
and you will look out of your window
and smile again

If you understand the beauty
of a sunset, then please tell me
how it works
for the flaming oranges and reds
just remind me of the fire I’ve been
running from my whole life

the flames constantly licking my heels
as I try to propel myself
further
faster

I know it will catch me up
one day, and engulf me
in the past I’ve spent
every ounce of energy I have
trying to forget
I know it will burn me
mark me, scar me

but I hope I will douse
the fire down, and walk
free once the pain passes
and maybe then, we can
share the beauty of
a sunset

How fast does the sun set
when no one is watching?

burnt orange skies that sink
like pebbles in a gently ebbing river

if no one bares witness
to the miracle of day’s end

does it happen?

or is all illusion and pink lies
told by the sunrise

I do not blame you
for leaving me

my wild heart
that aches in ways
another injured
heart cannot hope
to mend

instead I will remember
the late night kisses
on my forehead
when your lips gently
grazed my pale skin

I will not forget the
loving whispers or
tender touches

I think of you fondly
as the sun goes down

it may set on the love we had
but, my darling, it does not set
on love

He's everywhere
again

the blood that sticks
my lips together

when I wake

the dogs that bark
behind  white washed
gates

the cold grab of
the village drunk

the heat that's taken
from me in rare moments
of sleep

the dark rings under
my eyes that I wear
like rosary

so the devil
I picture holding
hands with you

becoming you

can't see my insides

organs, scattered

rotting

the red, anxious rash
that covers me

the knots and filth in
my hair

He is everywhere

He's everywhere
again

the blood that sticks
my lips together

when I wake

the dogs that bark
behind  white washed
gates

the cold grab of
the village drunk

the heat that's taken
from me in rare moments
of sleep

the dark rings under
my eyes that I wear
like rosary

so the devil
I picture holding
hands with you

becoming you

can't see my insides

organs, scattered

rotting

the red, anxious rash
that covers me

the knots and filth in
my hair

He is everywhere

we stood in the ashes

at the end of all things

silently,
we wrapped our fingers together

exchanging words without speech
a language of love, untranslatable to others

but we understood every note,
every arch and fall

the world around us had disappeared
yet here we were, survivors

withstanding the winter
of the universe

Close your body into -
mine.

It's 4AM and the rain is lashing
down, potholes in the sidewalk
swell from the weight of the
water

endless. The belly of a whale,
guts stripped back, open to the next
punch

why did I pick you? That sounds
like the choice of a gardener, an expert at comparing soil for the rate that a flower spreads

into you. I fell. Heart first and aching,
like the dull ache of a thunder headache, the knowledge that it will
soon clear when the storm comes

we held on hard. Through those
New York winters. We found that the
caverns of our minds were filled
with soft light

that we let flow over us. It is the yellow
seed of a rose that spreads into bloom,
tended by tender hands and allowed to keep its thorns, despite the danger they

hold. For us, careless pickers of hearts. Savage and ruthless, the delicate structure of blood

spills. Out of your mouth in the middle of a kiss. You gag. I scream. We dance out a scene. My pockets hold secrets of death, a small vial the eye refuses to linger

on. And on. It takes thirty minutes to bleed out and I count each one down with a passion you made me hide from
myself

on those nights where you held me down and took me, whispered in my ear with wine stained teeth. As I plotted and waited, waited, held my

breath as if it were made of pure gold. As if air were diamonds. I watched you shudder and take your last shake.

I took the rope from my gown and wrapped it round a tree we'd planted together.

At 4AM I kiss the shallow cheek of Death. A roar from the crowd. "More, more" but there is no

more.

I find myself
at sixteen
twirling daisies
between my scarlet
painted fingers

with my lips
matching, fearful
of smudging, of
taking a glass
of water

that you desperately
need. Your dehydrated
mind playing tricks
with the lights

you do not see
your father, belt
wrapped around
his hand

his pants slowly
caving in to
gravity

and so do you
collapsing to
the bed, sheets
already ruffled

you are oblivious
to his weight and
yet you know, deep
down

that there is nothing sweet
about sixteen

My heart beats, still
although you're gone
life goes on

so they say...

but they never held
your hand in theirs

stroked your hair at 3am
when they couldn't sleep

I run screaming from this darkness
into the wild night

offering myself to the stars

"TAKE ME!"

I yell,

take me and put me amongst your heavenly light
I have no place on Earth anymore

now that the one thing grounding me to it
has gone

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)

The wishes of raindrops
led me to you -

a transparent pearl that
glistens on the petal of

a flower

teetering on the edges of
life, a kiss away from

falling

forgetting, forgotten in the folds
of earth

a ***** away from being dug
up, exposed like

a raw nerve. The calcium in
your bones

spread unevenly through
your spine

so that you must stoop
to touch me

I am a lion's tooth -
a flower blown on the whim of

a wish

pain is etched
onto my body
like a tattoo

it pierced the flesh
and left its inky
residue

on my skin
forever

I tattoo your name on my arm

as if I am scared that time may
erase it from my memory

as if flesh speaks louder
than a heart that beats

to the rhythm of fractured souls

your name -
I will bury in my skin forever

long after you have forgotten
how to form the sound of mine