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 live in a world
where feathers are
signs from a
home that you
nest in
out of the corner
of your eye
-
and
smoke rings
must be caught
and cherished
-
the other place
where honeysuckle
fills the air in a
euphoric burst
of belonging
-
the place where
the edges are
soft and sounds
do not grate
-
I would live here
forever, but I
must return,
and leave Him
-
always, always
trapped between,
anchored in
two worlds

The black spot on
my heart that has
spread through my
body like a plague

The great river of
ice, confessing to
the coldness of
my soul

I swim, battling
the tide of my
innermost thoughts

A wanderer who
hates the loneliness
of the road

The palm of my hand,
empty

Every Autumn,
my grandmother would
sweep away the leaves
from in front of
her house

she believed my grandfather
was always watching, still
sitting in his wicker chair
chipped white paint
peeling away from the
wood

in the kitchen,
the smell of bread
rose, licking the
ceiling with its
sweet tongue

she still bakes,
hoping the dough
will stretch as far
as his fingers

through swept leaves
and breadcrumbs,

down to the very core
of the Earth

the very core
of her

Every Autumn,
my grandmother would
sweep away the leaves
from in front of
her house

she believed my grandfather
was always watching, still
sitting in his wicker chair
chipped white paint
peeling away from the
wood

in the kitchen,
the smell of bread
rose, licking the
ceiling with its
sweet tongue

she still bakes,
hoping the dough
will stretch as far
as his fingers

through swept leaves
and breadcrumbs,

down to the very core

the very core
of her

I have given each part of my
heart a name

attached it to a memory and
age

this one is seven, cutting off
the blonde hair of Barbie dolls
and painting in the plastic, fleshless scalp with my
wax crayons

now she is eleven, anxious walks
from school, skipping self consciously, aware, painfully
aware of everything

the size of her fists clenched
in fear against her palms,
the length of her nails scratching
out moments so that they
pass

(faster)

now, I am ageless,
nameless - I don't belong
to anyone, not even to
myself

and it is better this way,
to be dragging my knees over
the glass of a shattered whiskey
glass

crawling, the dirt is where I
belong now, it is where I
nest - and the state of my
skin is nothing

nothing compared to the torn fabric of my past

aged seventeen and bro-
ken

cheap *****,
dangerously cheap
*****

a spare room, is where my body is hijacked, and the very core of him
becomes the core of me

as he takes me,
piece by bloodied piece

until there is
nothing left
of a girl

no hearts,
no parts,
no names

the bitterness,
the knowledge,
that it was ***
that broke me

and that only ***
can make me
whole again

The first pill was bitter
and stuck in my throat like lead

I had to force it down,
like swallowing sand

The second pill was sweet
and slipped down like honey

I barely noticed it,
deceptively sugar coated
and innocent

The last pill broke apart
in my mouth, powder on my tongue

I felt every milligram disintegrate
like my life

I swallowed

I swallowed

I swallowed

my cold heart
keeps on beating

my dark eyes
keep on seeing

my wrecked soul
keeps on growing

like a sunflower
turning like a head

towards the sun

I am
a seed

planted in rotten soil
blooming despite

the poison

the smell of your cigarettes
catches in my throat

it tastes of home
and your warm

embrace, holding my body
as it shakes

like a butterfly desperate
to fly, but

wings clipped and
chained

to the root
of your

heart

I am -
a woman of
science and skill

I am -
a collector
of facts and
absolutes

He is -
the anomaly

a cruel contamination

he says I
count and in
my mind I
imagine

not with my
head but my
heart

the rules of
fantasy are still
mine to learn

how far does it go?

does it
have edges?

I feel the edges
of his body blending
into the shape
of me

the taste of tobacco
of tea on his lips
that are now
my lips

I am -
a woman of
passion and
warmth

I am a woman
curled into the
crook of a man

I am -
a woman of
science and skill

I am -
a collector
of facts and
absolutes

He is -
the anomaly

a cruel contamination

he says I
count and in
my mind I
imagine

not with my
head but my
heart

the rules of
fantasy are still
mine to learn

how far does it go?

does it
have edges?

I feel the edges
of his body blending
into the shape
of me

the taste of tobacco
of tea on his lips
that are now
my lips

I am -
a woman of
passion and
warmth

I am a woman
curled into the
crook of a man

there are differences between
the sea at sunset and
sunrise

one waves away the
sorrow of my
body

and the other weeps
a fateful goodbye

What about the moon -
waxing under God's gaze
turning the arc of the tide
into a smile or a
crash of anger

I do not pretend
to know it's secrets,
painted in the sky,

only to be seen
at the fall
of night

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

we hate the ghosts of our pasts

because they try to teach us the things

we fear

the things we don’t want

to hear

their footsteps echoing with each bad decision we make

histories that we insist on repeating

but if we let their shackles slack

a little

we will see their guiding lights are not

blinding

but a dim glow that can illuminate our way out of

the shadows

It occurred to me,
suddenly (as I
watched his face
in sleeping sunlight)
that he was a thing
of soft flesh and
warm blood
and not of  
cold deductions
and brutalities

It occurred to me,
suddenly (as I
watched his face
in sleeping sunlight)
that he was a thing
of soft flesh and
warm blood
and not of  
cold deductions
and brutalities

Come and listen to the sound
of my skin,
you will hear the regret
that lingers on it

from the brushes of his fingers
through the fine hairs on my arm,
that embarrassed me,
but he thought were delicately beautiful

you will hear the sighs
he buried in my neck,
after being up with my nightmares
for the third night in a row

he said he didn’t mind,
but those sighs... those sighs...

you will hear the sting of his goodbye
that hit me like a tidal wave,
straight in the stomach,

it stung... it stung like a fierce bee
who had nothing left to lose
by leaving its sting
in the skin of its lover,

hear my skin, hear that sting
it buzzes, hums, vibrates...
my skin is alive with venom

don’t listen for too long,
it spreads

We walk
Hand in unforgiving hand
Away from what we saw
In each other’s eyes
In the seconds before sleep

Bitterness has taken us
Blood and stone
Settling in our hearts
We have turned to cruel words
Thoughtless acts of callousness

We split
Parting like the sea
The tide against us
And waves recklessly washing away
What was once untouchable

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 am sharpening my teeth,
preparing for the taste of
your flesh,

I am hesitant to take the first
bite, but I have a hunger that
nothing else will satisfy,

(revenge, revenge)

I am a creature of hate, now,
I am what you made me,
what you moulded me
into with your

bare hands. Toss back
the sheet and lay down
your gun,

show them what you
really are, open up
the scars you've forged
into my skin,

branded into my thighs,
white hot and stinging.
You say it's what I asked
for, with my ***
soaked lips,

but you knew how
the story would end
before you had even
seen me

knew the weight of your hand
smothering a scream

you came to me armed
and I was defenceless
but I am no longer
gunless

my bullets will hit your
heart, and I will forget
your smell, I will
shake of your
stale breathe

I'm not here to forgive you

(This story is mine)

He had a tattoo
instead of a knife or gun,
that much I knew.

I was naked and edible,
dark cherry lips, parted, legs
spread, open to anyone,
starved, famished.

I moulded into his touch,
fluttering and spluttering.

My ribcage was empty,
I killed my heart when I said,
'I don't want you
like that.'

The ashes are still hot.
When daylight breaks
they are sifted like
stones in search of
diamonds.

There is nothing precious.
Here.
Anymore.

His tattoo, pressed
against my *******,
rising and falling
as his tongue swallowed pieces
of myself I was yet
to taste.

As he plunders, I imagine
all the places I visited as a girl.

I wonder if I ever truly left
the photos where I was once young
and whole. Whole.

in a way I can never be again.

I wonder if they live inside me still,
inside these shattered bones.

Summer days of warm breezes,
writing my name into the sand,
cocooning the letters in hearts and never,
not once, thinking, 'I am alive.'

As I lay naked on this rough
carpet, bleeding and *******
over myself.

As I learn too late
that words said can exist
without meaning.

I think of those summers,
long ago.

I can never go back but, really,
I have never left.

How did we fall into
this power struggle

love and kindness
tugging with scorn and disregard

each day we wake
and wonder whose heart
will triumph

we drink our coffee
and contest over its
bitterness

or sweetness

every day we fight
over nothing
and everything

our souls eradicating
with each row

if this is love
then I shudder at the thought
of hate

I miss sharing bathtubs
with you, the way our
fingers linked together
to form webs of skin
that stopped our hearts
slipping, like stones
beneath the surface

I heard that drowning
was the worst way
to go. The way that
skin wrinkles away
from the bone in
shades of blues
and grays

The subtle difference
between immersion
and submersion,

the line between trying
to restart a heart or
leaving a chest cavity
to fill with waves

life's oceans are
endless in their
meetings with
death

and some hearts
are meant to
cross the sea

I miss sharing bathtubs
with you, the way our
fingers linked together
to form webs of skin
that stopped our hearts
slipping, like stones
beneath the surface

I heard that drowning
was the worst way
to go. The way that
skin wrinkles away
from the bone in
shades of blues
and grays

The subtle difference
between immersion
and submersion,

the line between trying
to restart a heart or
leaving a chest cavity
to fill with waves

life's oceans are
endless in their
meetings with
death

and some hearts
are meant to
cross the sea

With lips that challenge the
reddest of wines

she drank from the cup that was offered, without question

it was sweet. Sickly sweet and dark

dark sugar, the colour of ***
drips from her mouth,

she wipes off the evidence with a snide smile,

a knowing scorn. Almonds

ground up and mixed into marzipan

covering cakes, full of plump fruits soaked in brandy

take a slice. You have your cake now

eat it.

I want to plant my lips
in your dark curls. Red lips,
like the buckled shoes of
a child. A life at the beginning.
A name still finding it's rhythm
on the tongue.

We are like children.
Testing out words for size.

How big is 'I love you?'
How heavy is 'goodbye?'

I want to roam into
the woods that I’ve
never felt beneath
my feet

the earth creeping
between my toes
the still, silent kiss
of nature

I want to run
my fingers around
the branches of trees

until my skin smells
of Oak, seeped in
greatness, ancient
and enduring

how I envy it

the woods
earth and
trees

are the whispers
that keep me
grounded in
the now

my past dissolving
like a thundercloud
that has run its
course

and I stand tall
Oak, Ash and Birch
the spine of time
great roots planted
in the ground

I am here, now
I am here
now

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

How rare now,
is this touch of gold?

this majesty of purple tulips that tap out
love’s fingers

stretching,
like a babes arm towards it’s mother

mighty in feeling
this one second,

stopped on a watch
as if smashed in a murderous fall,

and in knowing,
that nothing lasts forever,

not even the taste of stardust
on lover’s lips

your feelings
are from thrift
shops and flea
markets

second hand and
well worn

frayed around
the edges

a hole in the sleeve

a hand me down
heart

how can I believe
anything you
say

as truth

when the same
words were
once kept

on a letter
close to the
chest of the

girl before

I cried for you
a flash of silver
between my teeth
lips, scarlet and drip-
ing

at seventeen I knew
the weight of you,
each hair on your arms
as you pressed my back
into the stained carpet

the Japanese tattoo
that, tracing the thick
black lines with my eyes

a quick glimpse of my
grandfather, mixing bread
with milk and whiskey

flowers that grew, evergreen
in the garden where
he'd chase me

laughter ringing through the air
cheesecloth blue dresses
and black, buckled shoes

you eat me, heart first
then each sense in turn.
I welcome the loss of
them all.

The touch of your
nails in my thighs. The
taste of blood as your
rotted mouth envelopes
my own. The sound
of flesh beating flesh.
The sight of sweat beads
resting on your brow. The
smell of ***** seeping
through skin.

In a moment
I am no longer
a girl

but a woman eating
the words off my clothes, smarting, sinister ****

a ***** kitchen floor
is waiting. The cool relief
of the tiles on my
burning skin

a woman,
no longer whole
yet still
alive

I listen to the storm crash
against my window

memories strike, like lightning
and I know that I instilled
the wrath of thunder

in you

and this is you, visiting
to make sure that I never forget

you

like the ebbing of the tides,
you have rolled away

(from me)

but I know you will creep
back up the beach of my bones,
again

and into my heart

(where you belong)

we still have time

for one more cigarette
over coffee at breakfast

for one more glass of cheap
red wine in the evening

for one more conversation at 4am

for one more kiss at midnight

for one more letter
we’re too afraid to send

we still have time

but the clock is chasing us down
like a reaper

we must be quick
before we don’t have any time

at all

Mornings turn to noons
that turn to nights

and I am quite content
to wait through the cycle
of time for you

to serve up each hour
in the shattered bowl of
my heart

for you to eat,
for you to meet

me beneath the bridges
that I burnt finding my
way to you

sacred seconds to spend
on holding hands and
kissing through a storm.

It is my destiny to shake
my bones dry,

to carve initials into
rotten trees, nature's
disease

it is a sickness, it's true
to wait for you

time is ticking away from me,
as I sit in my window,
a cigarette idly flicked between my fingers
into an ashtray that is overflowing,

how long have I been here?

the seasons change around me,
the daffodils change to sunflowers,
to crisp red autumn leaves swept
across my neighbour’s porch,

it will be winter soon,

children will build snowmen,
their fingers purple from the biting frost,
kisses chanced beneath mistletoe
and tables groaning under the weight of food,

time has gotten away from me,
it is too late now to chase it,
so I shall sit, and flick my cigarette
sitting stiffly in my window
staring blankly through the glass

time slows down
or speeds up

relative to how
fast you move

against
something
else

hurling into
the vast loneliness
of space

at the speed
of light

your heart
trapped in
aluminum

ages far
slower than
mine

gravity
bending
time

twisting
the narrative
of our love

so that one
of us grows
old

apart from the
other,

helplessly watching

a promised lifetime
blowing up

above the cheers
and screams

of a crowd

Our bodied are built
by billions of tiny, red
hearts (within hearts)

I love you
despite infection

my intention is to
swim in the sea of
your blood

and find a tiny, red heart
of my own

heathen heart -
you sank your teeth
into my neck
and drank my blood
like a fine wine,
lips dripping merlot red
you didn't care about
the consequences
in your moment of pleasure,
a volcanic eruption
of shame was waiting
but still you drank me down
deep, as if thirst was your plague,
as you drew for fractured breath
I trembled,
and in your eyes their was the slightest shadow of
remorse,
enough to stop you draining me dry, though?
to stop you leaving me an empty vessel
skin and bones
remains to be seen

You may stitch my lips together

rip the voice box from my throat

stick white hot pins in my heart

and plant bitter roots in my feet

but you will never silence me

now that I’ve found my voice

tentative, at first, but it grew like a vine

to twist around your spine

I will scream from the rooftops

the injustices you laid on me

create hope with a needle and thread

I am blackened, blue and bruised

but these words carry a thousand knives

to find you

the branches shook to hear your name

the magpies screamed when there was
nothing left

to steal

as you’d taken it all, in a fell swoop

like you’d taken my heart

brutally, dishonestly

and the branches shook

in trepidation

in case they were next

How do we go from surviving
to thriving?

to plunge our hands
into the heart of darkness
and twist it into light

to learn to bloom into a rose
from a rotten seed

I long to sing stardust from my lungs
and scatter the sky with diamonds

but I must learn how to live, first

to live and not exist

cosmic birth -
stars aligned
dead flowers that await the Spring

a handful of poppy seeds
scattered - like the ashes
of your dead wife, in her
favourite beauty spot

we are all stardust
and sorrow

holding out for a better
tomorrow

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

the evening rain
gently washes the scars
that hum like a wire
under the moonlight

we are rooted forever
with one foot in yesterday
and the other shaking
with agitated anticipation

not knowing it’s next move
preparing to take
a leap of faith into

tomorrow

we lay on a damp patch of grass on the hill,
as close as we can get to touching the sky

we’ve set our 90’s plastic all digital watches
and we are waiting for the

stars to open their centres and

breathe

magic into our souls

just one kiss that leaves a trace of stardust

on my lips

this is not our last chance
but the calendar is flicking fast
and one day soon
it will be

so let’s have one night of magic and madness
dancing barefoot under moonbeams

because tomorrow may come, but it won’t be sprinkled in stardust

like you and I are, tonight

bright lights and city streets
where we mapped out our love

I was always too timid to tell you

that I found the streets *****
and the neon lights nauseating

but still, we survived

(somehow)

and now we live
in a quiet little village

far away from the
pushing and shoving

the stench of hot food stands
on a street corner

we have two dogs,
and walk them across the fields

and I have always been too timid
to tell you

that I have found
my heart,
my home,
my life

in your arms

I will not stop because
you have stopped

I will look out of windows
and smile at faint traces
of snow

I will lick the sugar from
my coffee spoon

just like I lick the sugar
from your lips

I will watch waves crash
against rocks

feels waves wash against
my bones

I will read all the books in our library, twice, and stick post
it notes to mark the pages

because you never let me
keep place

keep pace with myself

I will **** the juice out
of an orange and let it
dribble down my chin

and stick there

I will not die inside
like you have
died

I will be childish and brave

curious and compassionate

I will do the things you
say I am too old
to do

and I will smile
reckless and
young at heart

as I slip between
the sheets

old age and cynicism
so close to brushing
my skin

as I try to avoid
touching you

I have been waiting for my demons to
mould themselves around your heart

to sink their teeth into your soul

so that you may bliss me with the kind of absolution I have been craving

since before I was old enough to drink

but I have learnt that shedding my scarred skin
so that it may become your

skin

is not only selfish of me
but will also strip me to the bare bones

shaking spine and clavicle

so that there will ultimately be nothing left of me
to see