when singing failed

I screamed

and the bars of

my cage finally

shattered

into a million pieces

of freedom

My thoughts freeze my senses

every emotion has become
a knife piercing my spine

I share more in common with the night
and yet I am dragged, unwillingly
into the day

There was a moment when I could have stood up to the all-encompassing storm

thrown my fists to the heavens
and not cared about the consequences

I was idealistic and naive,
assuming it would pass over by itself

I should have stood up for myself
and fought for my freedom

told the darkness it was not welcome here

not welcome inside me

This is the aftermath
of my heavy living
the reflection of
a streetlamp
in a ***** puddle

the ringing sound
of keys being threaded
through fingers
Awaiting attack

strangers find me,
under the orange haze
of light, as if my body
is a broken truck
waiting to be
recovered

one of them tells me
to never trust a man
who walks in step with
his shadow

they say that ***
has a smell and
they’re right

the air itself
is choking on
exhaust films, on
the curling, reaching
smoke of a cigarette

my skirt (my skin),
is torn

some of the older ones
take trophies, tearing bits
of fabric away from
my body

as you would separate
a phone number from a
scrap of paper

I can afford new clothes,
of course, and the powder
that hits my mind and settles
it, the way that sand
thrown over snow
softens it

the racing thoughts,
the tides of red and gold
and yellow memories wash
over me

stinging my wounds
with their salt

no-one remembers pain
that can't break the skin

and on those nights where I
satisfy a lions need for meat

neither can I

This is the aftermath
of my heavy living
the reflection of
a streetlamp
in a ***** puddle

the ringing sound
of keys being threaded
through fingers
awaiting attack

strangers find me,
under the orange haze
of light, as if my body
is a broken truck
waiting to be
recovered

one of them tells me
to never trust a man
who walks in step with
his shadow

they say that ***
has a smell and
they’re right

the air itself
is choking on
exhaust films, on
the curling, reaching
smoke of a cigarette

my skirt (my skin),
is torn

some of the older ones
take trophies, tearing bits
of fabric away from
my body

as you would separate
a phone number from a
scrap of paper

I can afford new clothes,
of course, and the powder
that hits my mind and settles
it, the way that sand
thrown over snow
softens it

the racing thoughts,
the tides of red and gold
and yellow memories wash
over me

stinging my wounds
with their salt

no-one remembers pain
that can't break the skin

and on those nights where I
satisfy a lions need for meat

neither can I

You have always tasted life
with my lips,

each night we spent
swapping secrets
under stars,

each kiss of my neck
that sent shivers of
electricity down
my spine,

every cigarette that
we shared between
shaking hands,

limbs unfolding like rose
petals, skin peeling
away at your touch
shredding me down
to the bone

where you stand,
watching and waiting

You have always tasted life
from my lips

I've murdered half of
the people who stood
between us to clear
the view

I've been inside
your mind and carved
out love notes

they are on the
bodies you read

on the lives
you try to
reconcile

but there is
no chance
of that now

promises lie, dead,
with the motionless
grave fillers  

in a moment
I am holding your
hand in autumn,
watching winter
born

ice and snow
to purify
the way I feel
tonight

I left my finger –
prints on your face
a kiss that lingers
and dies as you
turn cruel

I smell your
aftershave in
their hair as it
rubs off me
onto them

as you
rub off me
onto them

we won't be
meeting like this
again

we won't be
sharing spit
and blooded
bed sheets

and though you
say your heart
is frozen, I promise

it will thaw

I've murdered half of
the people who stood
between us to clear
the view

I've been inside
your mind and carved
out love notes

they are on the
bodies you read

on the lives
you try to
reconcile

but there is
no chance
of that now

promises lie, dead,
with the motionless
grave fillers  

in a moment
I am holding your
hand in autumn,
watching winter
born

ice and snow
to purify
the way I feel
tonight

I left my finger –
prints on your face
a kiss that lingers
and dies as you
turn cruel

I smell your
aftershave in
their hair as it
rubs off me
onto them

as you
rub off me
onto them

we won't be
meeting like this
again

we won't be
sharing spit
and blooded
bed sheets

and though you
say your heart
is frozen, I promise

it will thaw

We watched the dead roses
wither with the winter

our hearts turning cold and pale

our fingers locked together

frozen in time

when they find us

they will think we clung on to
each other till the bitter end

not knowing that the end was just

bitter

she walked in the shoes
of the prince who charmed her,

blood smeared black leather
and frayed laces,

she did not mean to
destroy him,

but she learnt too late
that life was not like a fairytale

and her happy ending could only
end in the ******

of the one who claimed to
love her

but if he loved her
why would he have

pulled her hair out, stand by strand
until the pain made her blind,

took a knife and twisted it
in her chest until her

heart split its arteries

and bled

and bled

and bled

but she patched up the damaged
and returned the favour,

and now she walks away
from her tainted bedroom

away from her dying, bleeding prince

undefeated and proud

in the shoes of a dead man,
making freedom out of chains

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

the way I tread
on eggshells as
I run my fingers
across my body,

paper thin skin
that is agony
to touch

flesh that has
known fear, festering
hate and hysteria

to press too firmly
touch too deeply
know too closely

would be to
howl, werewolf
like, at the
moon

We stare, transfixed,
as the river sweeps our pebble ripples

further and further
away from the centre,
where the stone heart fell

like I fell for you, that day
under golden Autumn trees,
kisses as leaves crunched beneath our feet

yet now, a simple pebble is all it takes
for our lives to grow

further and further
apart

It stuck to us like glue

to our shoes
in our hair

we applied a chemical peel
that we hoped would

erase the taint of the past
on our skin

but the past evolved
with each step we took away from it

until it was a barred toothed wolf
with metal claws

to tear at and devour us

fight, flight, freeze

but if only there was more to life
than a ******* F word

I have tasted war

in the acid gasps
and swollen glands

in the crunching of
crumbling teeth

in bruised knuckles that force
themselves fiercely down throats

in fingers dripping with saliva
and sugar

in the scent of bread baking
slowly in the kitchen

that has become my
battlefield

I imagine myself
as an architect
crafting buildings
out of broken
bits of rocks
pencil lines
on paper
shaping into
something
beautiful

it must have
been beautiful
in the beginning
when our mind
had no pictures
to compare
to the ones
our eyes could
take

I imagine the
start of the
universe
dark matter
and energy
and how it
would feel
to absorb
any light
that hits

to hide where
even Galleo’s
gaze can't
reach

I imagine myself
as an architect
crafting buildings
out of broken
bits of rocks
pencil lines
on paper
shaping into
something
beautiful

it must have
been beautiful
in the beginning
when our mind
had no pictures
to compare
to the ones
our eyes could
take

I imagine the
start of the
universe
dark matter
and energy
and how it
would feel
to absorb
any light
that hits

to hide where
even Galleo’s
gaze can't
reach

I have heard stories
of gas lights and
cobble streets

their glare glowing,
amber dreams,
holding tight,
screaming

as we slip into a
stupor, rattling
windows

the hunted and the
haunted, stumbling
across these *****
stones

shoes creek, old
and broken,
and no one.
No one.

No one

hopes for the rays
of an orange sun,
the smell of
Spring rain

or victory

You have planted your feet
into the ground, as if the roots
of oak and willow trees
will bend and grow
around you

But the land is cruel
and unremorseful, it will
flood or famine or even
walk. The flowers full
of pollen, singing as
they sting

Yet you will tend them
tenderly, unaware of
the rage of a buried
thing. You will water
them and name them,
talk to them, sometimes

Your feet are in the ground,
now, and you cannot run
away, fight or flight, stuck
in time, in land, vegetables
surfacing, ivy climbing, as
you are forced to eat the
orange petals, that rebelled
against your claim of
ownership

He pressed a twenty pound note
soaked in whiskey
into my hand

This is for the taxi home

my legs are dead
and bruised

hair ripped out
at the roots

black leather boots
scuffed at the kick

make it look like
an accident

a broken glass
on the floor

a red wine kiss
at midnight

frozen lips that
whisper lustful
moans

and I remember
the first drink
in the park

the innocent brush
of a hand against
a thigh

as I take the money
and run

I saw the ghost
of you

on the pillow
next to me

as you slept

and I realised
I had to leave

before the ghost
became me

I am the ghost of poetry past

that cringe in your chest as you skim through words you once thought barred your soul
but now only shame it

that lump in your throat
as you try not to cry over a cliched metaphor
you used when you were sixteen and riddled with angst

you may think I am only here
to hurt and embarrass you

but actually,
I am the best teacher you’ll ever have

I will allow you to learn from what
now looks like shattered prose

I will allow you to grow from the imagery
you didn’t get quite right

and when poetry future calls,
she will bare gifts of words of wonder

that were only made possible
through listening to me

the ghosts in my head
are taunting me

calling out to me
in the middle of the night

all of my secrets
laid bare

I have tried to exorcise them

but each time
they return

laughing

refusing to leave me
in peace

they will haunt me
until I die

and join them

my girlhood unravels like wool,
coarse, that unwanted touch  
stinging my skin,

a wasps nest, kicked alive
swarming all over me,

but these stings will not scar me,

I will grow new skin,
a shroud of flesh that has not
known the prickle of unwanted fingers tips

I will rise from the ashes of your depravity
like a Phoenix, born again

It’s the little things you do;
like holding a door

that irritates the Hell out of me.

I am not your rose fed goose, or a blonde haired nymph,

I never wanted that weekend in Paris, that forced upon me anxious insanity

yes, insane, that is what
they’ll call me.
The doctors and nurses, shrinks and quacks

but I am not
and never was

I just wanted to be a girl ,
a little more than I wanted
to be

a woman

I wanted a man
to gasp at the heels
of my shoes,

I'd pick them for their colour
and become it,

as if sequins could stitch
to my soul and make it

shine

blue eyes dancing
with firelight

arches of ash
under which we shall

kiss

glass clouds gather

and I can see straight through

the sky

straight to the core of

the sun

straight to the centre

of you

She smiles through the smeared lipstick
Glass,
The smile of a lover torn away at the
Heart,
Sad and gentle, she fills the red outlines with
More,
Crimson circles of time touching
Flesh,
She empties the bottle into the
Glass,
Fills the amber nectar into her
Heart,
Warm, embracing, she yearns for
More,
For a hand to reach out and touch her
Flesh.

& 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

The ocean roars around us

and in it I hear the call of the deity
who sent you to me

begging me to trust you beyond
trust’s breaking point

emplourinig me to take your hand in mine
and twist our fingers into patters
to shadow against the midnight sky

and I will, I will, hold on

let the waves crash at our bare feet
and walk away from this beach,
entwined in your spine

believing
believing
believing

in the Goddess of you

God fearing -
we kneel before altars,
sipping red wine,
a representation of
human blood when
we are already
bleeding

to death -
there is nothing
but the illustrated,
yellow pages of
a chained bible
that fails to reach

us -
dancing naked
in the storm;
a storm child
born under thunder,
black clouds that

swallow -
us whole yet,
you are made of
the darkness,
swimming in it's
mirky waters like a

mermaid -
I take Heaven
into my mouth
when we kiss,
hungry for a taste
of that forbidden fruit
that will take us both to

Hell

I kiss you, empty soul
and bruised lips. Blisters
from biting down, tasting blood, swirling it round my teeth.
You are God to me, a heavenly vision. White and clean, like I have never been. I taste your bones as I take you into my mouth. A mercy kiss. Marrows mixing as we grind, holy hip bones. Friction. The clay compound of hearts. I bury each one in my chest. Hold tightly. And pray for a kiss. Unseen by God. A secret. A deadly sin. We are sinners, tongues searching in the dark. I take you, wine soaked breath and heavy sighs. Rouge red and biting, biting down to the core of the forbidden apple. We are temptation. Hungry and Godless. We forge our way with broken, filthy nails. Seeking, seeking, searching...

I am afraid of that which I cannot touch,

the stars that burst and spread out across an infinite sky

the fire that's too hot, blazing black coal in the hearth

the air that carries words, flower petals, blue birds and rain

the heart's pink pulse that dictates life (and death)

the stomach full of swallowed butterflies, beating brown wings against my guts

God

you

You held a promise
over my head like a guillotine,

I'd be safe as long as I did
what you asked,

I'd survive so long as I
gave you what you wanted,

I saw God in the face of Satan,
because there was no other
way for it to be,

and you want my thanks
and gratitude for being
my saviour that
night?

when you would put me
in a prison, for the rest of my life...

I wake up to your face each morning,

your hair creating red flames across a cotton white pillow,
your eyes, deep blue, luring me to stare into the depths
of the ocean, to be serenaded by mermaids,
your lips taste of coffee and cigarettes
as I plant a good morning kiss onto them,

this is a sight I want to see before I breathe
my very last breath,

I take it in, each detail
and fingerprint it on my memory,

you are more beautiful in this raw moment
than you could ever be

any other way

It was your turn to wake me,
your arched back stretching,
muscles flexing as you
lengthened your limbs
towards me, covering my skin
with yours, in creases that
whisper,

good morning

Gracious
they called me
as I raised
my silver
clutching
hand
and toasted
your life
grimacing with
yellow stained teeth
ashes rise and
down she
goes

wandering heart

nomad soul

my only longing is to roam

these ***** streets of pride and pity

these forests of failure and flight

I only want to know the feel

of grass between my toes

Flesh, flesh and
bone

the grave digger
clawing away at
the dirt

a shovel first
then hands

years of nail
biting offers the
earth a home

under his skin,
I am not one
to sift

patiently waiting
for old coins
or gold

the broken skull
of a cat, a chipped
molar

that belonged to
a father, forgotten
in the yellowed papers

of time. Skin,
skin and bone
I died a year ago

hollow, rattling in
the fist of my
mother

white sheets that
wrapped my
limbs

are pulled tight,
a half ghost
human shaped

my mouth is wide
with the Earth,
taken in and

****** like a plum,
skin and flesh
swallowed

whole. There is
only bruised
fruit on the

funeral table. As
the grave digger
claws out my

hole. My first
fixed home,
a house of

soil and acidic
tears. Minerals
and salt

mixing like the
marrows of
lovers

buried in the
ground. I will
never leave

rotting, skeleton
shaking, the deep
breath before the

plunge. A war
lost, my final
hour and I am

home

we were lovers
leaving no footprints in the sand
like ghosts
we walked the earth
lighter than air
and higher than heaven

love was the only
gravity we needed

I’d paint my face
with the smiles
I stole from
playgrounds
if you looked
closely, you would
see my knees
bruised and bloodied
from falling off the
swings, swinging
into the air like
a fearless bird
but I have no
wings
and fall
like hail
from the sky
onto the
asphalt

My heart is a grey sky
storm clouds forming in
the corners, in the blink of
an eye

I can touch tree tops
with rain drops, watering
green leaves when I am
a naked branch

I sit, solid body,
side by side with Heaven,
a black and white God

I consume stars,
their fire burning in the
pit of my stomach,

a warmth that has
replaced the heat
of your hand

in mine

I am grieving for my past selves

the selves that never made it

fractured fragments longing to be found

pockets of secrets
and black as ink truths
that I have carried with me

forever

and yet, they were tossed aside,
and burnt with the waste,
as if hazardous to continue existing

I grieve for them,
and for myself,

walking around with this
huge hole in my heart,

but I walk on, and mend, as best I can -

bandaids, staples, superglue,

repairing the cracks and yet,
having the courage to weep for what
has caused the wound

I pick lemons from trees
meant for g&t’s
blessed fruit
chemical release
relief from longing
and memory
a slip of something else
and I am dancing with
the demons that would
otherwise destroy me

in my room,
littered with the wrappers of food
I stole and ate in secret

in my body,
unbrushed hair and puffy cheeks
playing a melody of loathing
on my flesh covered bones

in my heart,
wild with longing for excitement
and adventure. Untouched by
human hands, but not by human
words

I am the bitter root
of shame
the twisting torment
of guilt

and I pray every night,
but God closed his ears to me

long ago.

I see the light in your eyes

f a d i n g

and guilt crawls inside me as if it

has hands

to grasp at my heart and

t w i s t

until I bleed no more

and shame melts off me, and floats

like flotsam

in an endless stream of

h a t e

You unpicked my heart
like you picked your guitar

each string of my lifeblood
wound around your fingers

each beat of my dreams
pulsing against your palm

each dizzying rush of blood
to my head, the drug that fed me  

until I didn’t know who I was
anymore,

without you

I used to think mysef
a Romany

reading palms
and wearing golden
bangles

layers of purples
pinks and reds

adorning my body

but your love
turned me into
nothing but

a Tinker

stealing purses
from unsuspecting
well dressed women

and pocket watches
from pinstriped suited
men

I never said I was
guiltless

but your love
made me nothing
but ashes in

the fire pit of
Hell

(One more gypsy kiss)

like a thief in the night
you have taken me
like the sea

like the night
the darkness
the stars

we are so much
older, now

yet we are
young enough
to know the
sweetness of
a supernova

My heart has fallen
open in your hands,

red and swollen
it beats

consumed with desire
and lust

the capacity to
swallow oceans

and skies
words scattered

in a handful
of stars

to lead me back
to you

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 a

girl before