i’ll admit,
it feels a little like blackmail
when you say the things you say

i know you don’t mean it
but god, it hurts

it’s a knife twisting slowly in my gut.
it’s the floor vanishing underneath me.

broken apologies bubble out of my mouth,
passions unfettered and emotions confused.
where sweetness blossomed,
a bitter taste is left.

foot tangled in my own net,
pushing, pulling, struggling -
but only really constricting.

panic swirls in my chest,
a sourness in my throat,
waves crashing around my head.
down, down, deep into the pit,
weighed down by blind stupidity.

"pull me close, i promise i won't bite,"
whispered the razor from the cabinet,
"kiss? little kiss? small kiss for an old friend?
i hear you're into that these days."

"i really shouldn't," i reply, "i made a promise..."
______________

let it out

clean yourself up, scrub all the sin away,
let it drain into the shower basin -
cleaning, removing, making right!

warm and bubbling over, not too hot,
not yet

****.
hair in plug hole.
water isn't draining.

standing in filth. standing in sin.
look! look! you can see it!
it's all soapy and congealing!
rose-tinted bubbles and London grime!
______________

"hey, we've still got that old spark," flashing a grin

"i guess we do," i reply,
the heat already becoming unbearable under my broken skin

scatter my body among the stars

let me float nameless in the sky

so your eyes may never know me

and your mind will be whole and free


but I’ll feel your gaze

burning bright (as always as always)

from your bench in the garden

giving me whatever meaning you decide

oh god

never content:
withholding love out of what?
fear? envy? greed? sadness?

how i long for peace, stability and change...

a constant contradiction. barreling from heart to heart -
never finding ground long enough to lose myself
in someone else’s arms.

feelings stronger after i tear them out.

have to look at them in the air in front of my eyes.
bleeding, dripping their blood on the carpet,
heart beating in my hands.
to be clinically inspected and torn apart
only to discover that this was what i wanted all along.

like a tree, felled to tell its age,
dead, but finally understood.
too late to say,
“ah! look how old it’s branches, how deep its roots, how wonderful it’s shade!”

dead. dead and decomposing on the floor.

will i always glorify love lost over love in front of my eyes?

why does it feel this way
when I hear the songs you write

and why does it cut me so
to think of a lifetime of lost nights

by your side
by your side
by your side
bye