My fingers are long, wrinkles
running their length, their colour
vibrant, blues and purples,
overlapping like the feathers
of a brilliant bird

I am on the outside now,
looking in. I see myself
planting vegetables at
seventy, tulips and roses,
the dirt wraps around my hands
like a second skin

I shall gather a garden
to me, hide in the creases
of plants, the call of my
name shall shake tree
branches and yet
I shall not move

I will sit, filthy and
fragrant, fold in on myself
like a house of cards and
listen to the whisper
of the wind

When words are not enough, I cry

and in crying hope to unleash
some of the burden that nails me,
like Jesus to the cross

and set free my spirit,
divine and infinite

into the world where ghosts walk
and haunt my sleep,
but I hold hands with them, also

and we walk blindly into the moon
moon child, bright and brilliant
white light coursing through my veins

I cry, but tears are not weakness
and still I stand strong

finding words

like pulling teeth

can be unbearably painful

but sometimes

they are merely baby teeth

pathing the way

for something new

to grow

With my hand on the telephone
I wait anxiously to hear your
voice again, a voice that
licks my ears like honey,
memories come back
vividly, flooding me with
longing, I used to be
better than this,
better than waiting
like a child for
Christmas, up at the
crack of dawn, awake
all night listening
for sleigh bells,
but you have made me
wild, one of a hundred
sad women living with
their eyes and heart,
sleepwalking, left with nothing
but a longing for a voice
on the telephone
to tell me I'm beautiful
and "please wait
for me" and I know
I would wait endlessly
for you, desperately,
as if you were a cup
of water at the end
of a a hot summer's day,
I am weak and wounded
foolishly hoping you will
heal me. Is this how I die?
waiting with my hand
on the telephone

tell me
do you miss me
at 4am
when the stars are screaming
and the moon is cold

tell me
do you think of me
when the ocean rolls
across the sand

tell me
did you love me
with your whole, bleeding
heart

tell me
tell me
I need to know

Do not tempt me

with your red wine lips
and ink black hair,

eyes as dark and mysterious as an ocean
with waves that lap and engulf the shore,

well, I am the shore,
consumed by the sea of your heart,

I beg you not to take me in your arms,
for I could plant my roots in the crook
of your neck,

do not speak to me of love,
for I dare not dream, imagine, feel,

with every fibre of hair on my skin,
that you have shamelessly got under,

do not tempt me with promises,
doused in holy water as they may be,

I can not believe them,
I have been betrayed by forevers before

and I will not let a crack appear
in the lens through which I view you,

so just let me take you into
the ripples of my mind,
the circles of my eyes,

every inch of your flesh and hair,

every smell,
every touch,
every note of your voice,

each cigarette you smoked
over morning coffee,

each whiskey you drank
over midnight musings,

let me see you always,
as I see you now

The curves of your sleeping body
leave me on

tenterhooks -

the space between dreams
and waking

a pause -

the arch of your back shining
like the moon

translucent -

a slice of time preserved in the
maze of my

memory

How quiet it is here
now that the yellowness of
our youth has withered

I do not complain,
for I see your kind, soft eyes
smile at me across the room

I hear your heavy breath
as you inch your way
closer

the wheeze that whirls
from lung to air,
on a breeze of long -
suffering longing

I hold out my wrinkled hand
to touch your paper thin skin,
trying hard not to bruise
or break

and you take it, silver flashing
between your fingers as you
stab, stab, stab

my chest

as the pills reach your stomach
and you wrap tight around me
holding, holding, holding

onto my heart

I'm smoking my fourteenth cigarette of the night
and listening to a storm shatter against
my window

my mind is folding backwards to when
we first met, the most important raindrop
in history, caught in my eyelash

that you gently kissed away.

In April, I look forward to the showers.
to puddles gathering at my feet, that I
can splash about my boots.

Daffodils bringing yellow smiles,
spreading like honey across fresh
growing grass.

I remember your kiss
and the raindrop

as I listen to the violent, wild winds
of Tezcatlipoca, washing away
that single, fateful

drop

I walk
this Earth
like a ghost
hand in hand
with shadows
and spectres
the yellow seas
eaten by industry
are the solution
to my thirst
the apples of
Thalidomide trees
the only answer
to my hollowed
belly hunger
I dare not stray
from the
undercity
of drug
stors and
disease
It is my home, now
as much as
anywhere is
I fester like
a great root,
planted, anchored, growing
from the dirt
of misery

I am forever bound in this grief

soft skin and rose petals

scattered like the ashes of my dreams

across the bed of my nightmares

I close my eyes and taste the

salt kissed waves of your

ocean

the sea that drowned me when I was

helpless

and the arms that saved me

both realities existing together

as one

as your fingernails move down my spine

carving love letters and the blood

that we will offer

to Cupid,

in thanks for the richness of this moment

the textures that breathe eternity

in your hands

I am bound to this grief

of my carelessness

for you slipped so easily from my grasp

like sand through my fingers

just glass

glass to shred my bare feet on

as I walk towards

that beckoning ocean

It's that time of year again,

The air is warm,
breathing delicate
wisps of breeze
across my skin

I was cold
inside my heart,
shrank and barely
beating

My head is my own
theatre, frames flashed
and frozen, projecting
every still

I try to put the ghosts
to rest, bury them like
bones in a garden

But they wake up,
like vampires,
when the sun sets

Words catch in
my throat, lungs
take in their fill
of air, but there's
not enough oxygen

To feed my brain.

It's that time of year again,

The air is warm,
breathing delicate
wisps of breeze
across my skin

I was cold
inside my heart,
shrank and barely
beating

My head is my own
theatre, frames flashed
and frozen, projecting
every still

I try to put the ghosts
to rest, bury them like
bones in a garden

But they wake up,
like vampires,
when the sun sets

Words catch in
my throat, lungs
take in their fill
of air, but there's
not enough oxygen

To feed my brain.

It's that time of year again,

The air is warm,
breathing delicate
wisps of breeze
across my skin

I was cold
inside my heart,
shrank and barely
beating

My head is my own
theatre, frames flashed
and frozen, projecting
every still

I try to put the ghosts
to rest, bury them like
bones in a garden

But they wake up,
like vampires,
when the sun sets

Words catch in
my throat, lungs
take in their fill
of air, but there's
not enough oxygen

To feed my brain.

I pretended to be somebody else
it was easier that way
acting a part in a different play

I became addicted to the roar
of the audience
the standing ovations
for a character I merely inhabited

then I met you
and suddenly I became
real

the pores of my skin
uncovered
the awkwardness
of my personality
became a quirk
not a shame
to shy away from

and I started to live
a different act
the act of us

There was a time when I would run
into a burning building
to save you,

until I released that you were,
in fact, the arsonist,

setting light to whatever you touched,
(for the Hell of it)
and I was in that
(Hell)

my flesh burning as your fingers
pressed their prints on it

but you didn’t realise,
that you had turned me into evidence

and I would drag my body through
a thousand fires, and roll in the ashes,
of what’s left of my life

to help them catch you

We used to climb through
the broken fence and
visit the ancient
Ash tree that
stood, splendid
and solidatary

we would wrap our arms
around it, our fingers
far from touching

in our minds we would
disect the trunk and
count the rings, ageless
it was, beyond
number

we would sit
beneath it’s branches,
that reached out like
arms, hands desperate
to be held

it’s leaves would fall
in autumn, we would kick
their red and orange
offerings, disrespectful
as to where they
had come from

I still go to to it,
sometimes, I still
listen for it’s song

but it is dead
and quiet

without her

When I close my eyes
I see the beach where we once sat,
drinking wine and sharing cigarettes,
we watched the waves crash over
the sand, imagining that one day,
we would own a cottage on the coast,
we were could listen to
the ocean each night,
as we snuggled warm under blankets,
now we are cold and distant,
and no amount of dreaming
will bring the fire back into
our hearts, we are over
and it hurts to remember
those careless, wasted days,
where we could have done
so much instead of just
waiting

The inside of my mind
is like nails on a chalkboard

a hideous screeching sound
that I try to drown out
with whatever I can touch

my heart skips beats so frantically
it amazes me that it does not stop completely

the razor, the liquor, the pill
sing to me seductively in my sleep

there is an echo of a memory stirring
about it being time to make a choice

and this is the choice I must makelive in Hell or die in Heaven

it’s not much of a choice,
until another memory stirs

telling me I am worthy of being
on this Earth, and it is more beautiful because of my tenacity

to endure
to overcome
to survive

and that to live, is the bravest choice of all

Our names burn in the sky,
each tiny act of love crafted
into stars

constellations that paint
maps for travellers
to follow

our hearts a guide
for wanderers

I loved you as the first cigarette
burnt down between your
fingers

flicking ashes without
caring where they fell

lust consumed me like the sun
will one day swallow us
all

and now we are wild
fire, raging across
the night

you come the me now

as a butterfly

fragile winged thing

it is cruel that you die in a day

and I can’t even hold on to

your reincarnation

grief stirred endlessly

in a cycle

but I will take this daily torment

over never seeing you again

I rejected myself
at seventeen,

twisting my fingers
around a half-smoked
cigarette

my eyes turned red
from fear, blown
pupils,

I wanted to inhabit
it all, to press my
hands into my

soft thighs, like he did,
taking my hands and
holding

them tight,
I did not struggle

or shout. I was
trapped in the
amber of

my mind, between
the legs of a thorough
bred, respected and

encouraged.

No, I could not tell,
let that snake crawl
from my mouth.

Instead it grips
around my chords,
humming gently like a bird,

the caged creature that
I have become. I

did not want to
own myself,
to shout or write
my name

consumed by the
stench of silence,
quiet deeds that
are nameless,

emerging from the
caverns of lust

With a fish bone as a hair piece

she trawled the beach for clues,

a shell, a seaweed skin

the sea spread out and she held

the entire ocean in her mouth

swirling it around her crumbling
teeth

like a fine wine, red and ripe for spitting

out into a plastic bucket

that a child holds in their clenched fist

a mind full of castles and building

and I wonder what we are building

busking outside the mall on even

days of the week

a handful of copper and occasional silver

she runs sand through her fingers

then water

what does she see in those tiny grains of

glass

what does she see in

us

as the sunflowers wilted,

I felt a spike pierce my heart,

loaded with regret
and memories

of walking barefoot
through those fields with you,

chasing the sun as it
inevitably ran faster than we could

our feet, grass stained green

the promise of love, in full bloom,

as I turned my face away
from those dying flowers,
into the crook of your neck,

you sighed, whispered

“their seeds shall grow again

next spring,

and our love can
withstand the winter”

vines twisting
around limbs
gripping tight
the fear that you will never
l
e
t
  m
  e
   g
   o
jaw clenched
tongue blister
- ing, hair pulled from the
r
o
o
t
eyes burnt shut, praying
to a God you no longer believe in
to make it
S T O P

Here he'll be in
my memory
forever

hanging in the water
like a hook

anchored,

his heart hit the rocks

waves washed over his
limp body

a siren of despair
and desire

whose song will travel
nowhere, now

except the bottom of
the ocean

Two cups of coffee
- unsweetened - untouched
sit on the table, smiling,
between us

chair legs creaking
like old bones
as we pull away
from each other

hands crossed
cracked from washing
with bleach at midnight,
breaks in the middle of
meetings and meals

the table is glass
and when the light
hits it we have no
choice but to look
at each others
eyes

desperate, passive,
almost dead

I can see the words
sticking in his throat
but I'm not going
to help him set
them free

he can ask
me

Is it over
now?

is it the fall we crave
when we think of love?

to slip beneath the salty waters
of the ocean, breathing out bubbles

that contain that one word -

love

it is light on the tongue
and yet to speak it

carries such weight

in those four simple letters
you are opening your heart

to another

hoping that they will act like magnets
and stick together, forever

love is a simple word
and to fall into it
is a freedom

perhaps the greatest
freedom we have
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

Estranged, I am
shackled by steel

a secret bursting like fruit
behind my lips

they do not let me taste
the strawberries

I must gorge, fistful after fistful
until my chin turns red

the madness of hunger matching
the madness of me

tied, belly filled with lactose
capsule coatings

reality unravelling like a badly
sewed dress

the whisper of the world
reaching out to you

a spike in the black heart of
nothingness

the earth is choking to death

and we breathe our last breath

as the smoke consumes our lungs

desperate for one last kiss

amongst the fumes

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

sorting through stained jeans and shirts

I remember her

pink gingham dress and gnawed knees

from the floor she scrubbed

removing traces of brown blood
where she bled for

him

(for God)

swallowing sins and secrets,

the ****** Mary merely

a memory

to her.

I select a pair with ripped shins,

hand over my dollar

anticipating the anarchy of bare skin and ribs

(once fleshy)

protruding like

a ***** before

(Christ)

and I am not

that girl

in the thrift store

pressed palms

praying, praying, praying

for the taste of a

saviour

the girl in the red dress
haunts my dreams

twirling through my nightmares
like a ghost

taking coffee at my breakfast table
like an unwelcome house guest

she carries herself with sorrow
with the reminders of every scar on her heart
one for each time it was broken

she walks hand in hand with darkness
for she has seen it, known it, felt it
with her very fingertips

I do not look in mirrors,
for their reflection will show

that the girl in the red dress
is me

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

Tortured
My face
Contorted

The earth
Bending around
My bones

The shell
Of me
Cracked

Timeless
My skin
Ages

By the
Second

What of
The hollow
Crown

I wear
Around my
Head

Empty spaces
And echoes
Of yesterday

The future
Twisted like
A tree branch

In a hurricane

Eyes blacker
Than night
Skies

Starless and
The moon
Is cold

I am alone
Utterly

In the silence
Of 6AM

Does time
Heal all
Wounds

I don't think so

I think age
May tame
Them

But old
Hurts
Run like
Rivers

Of fire

Consuming
Everything

Eating me
To the
Bones

We have
the choice
to either
chase
every hour
given to
us
or to
claw back
every hour
in a desperate
chase to
put things
right

another cold, long night
counting down the hours until
daylight

keeping one eye on the hands
of the clock, at all times
as they chase down
time

in case they catch on
to my ever growing presence in their lives
and decide to
chase me, hunt me, pin me down

is it every insomniacs nightmare?
(If they ever slept long enough
to have one...)

that time is somehow out
to get them

playing tricks with minutes
turning hours into voids

I only hope that I shall sleep, one night
dream in peace
and no longer be haunted by
the hour hand

Your eleventh girl that day,
caught out of the corner of your eye,
a fully stocked bar, a familiar face,
you came in here on the hunt
for the innocent fox

(drink up, shut your eyes
breathe, don't forget to
dream)

a rolled joint, turn the radio up,
shut the windows, lock the door,
you're doing nothing wrong, after all

(lie down, count to ten
you're free to leave, in your mind
imagine so many things, anything
but what's really happening)

cover your tracks, throw out the blood
soaked sheets. tell yourself she asked
for it, tell yourself it's just *****
laundry, just the taint of
another girl

(run, through the pain,
it'll stop stinging soon,
just keep moving, move
get away, get away, let the air
wash off his scent)

purple... green... a two inch scar,
please stop asking me to describe him,
swallow hard, he's not inside you now,
you're free to breathe, it's over,

but in my mind

the pictures still play,
like a movie scene,
a scratch on a track,

he's the other side of this screen,
I can taste him, salt and sweat,
they see what I saw at first
a decent man, not an animal
who devours women as if
they're meat

tell them I'm crazy
tell them I was drunk
get some sick satisfaction
out of lying through your
barely concealed wolf grin

you're free to prowl again

The moonlight pours down on us
like silver nectar

encasing us in a glowing
white hum of magic and mystery

the stars shine like precious gems
each one worth more
than their Earthly wealth

we are the silent lovers,
the keepers of night

and all its secrets buried
in our lips

shared only between ourselves
in a midnight kiss

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

I watch a pebble make ripples in the water, before it sinks, and it’s painful to know
that at times, I have also wanted to drown

surrounded by the rippling conscious of my life
my past exploding and corroding

I do not want to drown every day,
some days I see the beauty of the lake
its shimmering blue surface, the rugged rocks wrapping around its body

but some days…

some days the past is like a knife of flames plunged into my heart,
and only the deepest depths of water
will extinguish it

There is something

other than a man

about him

eyes bright, 
lips
locked
 tight

his fingers

are not that

much longer

than mine

they too
 know
chemicals

the touch of glass

between your bare

skin and acid

I tap words
through the sheets

with my finger-

tips

dot dot dot

dot dot

dot

and through the

haze of sleep
he smiles

his mouth titling

towards mine

we don’t call it

kissing

it is the pleasent purple

colour of neutral

litmus paper

it is our data
spreading

from the corners

of our mouths
into my
 cheeks

my body betrays me
and colours them
red

but it is more
than a flush
of a fantasy
made present

to be able
to touch

this man who hides
(and lies)

to know
this light touch
of a man in
a mask

which he allows 

only me to
see 
through

There is something

other than a man

about him

eyes bright, 
lips
locked
 tight

his fingers

are not that

much longer

than mine

they too
 know
chemicals

the touch of glass

between your bare

skin and acid

I tap words
through the sheets

with my finger-

tips

dot dot dot

dot dot

dot

and through the

haze of sleep
he smiles

his mouth titling

towards mine

we don’t call it

kissing

it is the pleasent purple

colour of neutral

litmus paper

it is our data
spreading

from the corners

of our mouths
into my
 cheeks

my body betrays me
and colours them
red

but it is more
than a flush
of a fantasy
made present

to be able
to touch

this man who hides
(and lies)

to know
this light touch
of a man in
a mask

which he allows 

only me to
see 
through

You are the key
he said,

but my heart
is not

the lock

tick

tock

stop

This is her reflection
poisonous to herself
eyes meeting memories
and cracked glass that
threatens to break

Call me heartless
if it helps you feel better

keeping me locked in a memory
of bitterness
dragging my name through the dirt
as you tell the next girl of the one
before

I can keep your kisses pressed
against my heart
and pretend the sweetness lingers

if it makes you feel better
be cruel and not kind

I don’t mind

I ask the moon to light up
your footprints

as if I could follow the trail home
with moonbeam shining on my face

but that great, silver sphere
holds no clues

and stardust can only sustain me
for so long

I eat scraps of midnight
but my hunger for you

burns more fiercely
than the oncoming sun

in the end
the only love that you’ll remember

is the kind that made your heart break
with each act of kindness, or cruelty

made your lungs burn, as you gasped for air
between each kiss

made you feel like you were going to die
each morning, when you said goodbye

that kind of love
is the only love that will leave
fingerprints on your mind