She rises
effervescent
before the sun
eyes cutting the darkness like headlights

she sheds her skin
of crisp cotton
Pink and raw
stretching to the horizon like a wind burned cactus

her limbs lead her
to the window pane
she gazes through the frost
beholding the silent expanse like looking into her tomb

Helen walked down
the steps of St Jude’s school
her mum was waiting for her
with the big pram

you were by the school gates
are you coming back with us?
Helen said
ok

you said
and so you
and Helen
and her mum

walked along
St George’s Road
her mother talking
about the shopping

she’d done
and what she’d bought
Helen walking alongside
you thinking of Cogan

and him saying
he was going to
smash your face
but he didn’t of course

he was all mouth
but even if you had to
fight him you had to
be careful of his glasses

never hit someone
with glasses your mother
used to say
but if you had to

you would of course
can you come to tea?
Helen asked
you looked at her mum

pushing the pram
if it’s all right
with your mum
you said

it’s fine
her mother said
as long as you
don’t expect caviar

and she laughed
and you wondered
what caviar was
but smiled anyway

and once you got
to Helen’s house
you said
will my mum know

where I am?
yes I told her
you’d come with us
for tea this morning

Helen’s mum said
that’s good isn’t it
Helen said
and she took you

into the sitting room
and you sat
on the big brown settee
and she sat beside you

and told you
about the boy
in her class
who said she looked

like a toad with glasses
I don’t do I?
she said
not at all

you said
you’re pretty
you added
beginning to blush

do I?
she said
yes
you said

and she kissed
your cheek
and you patted her
on the back

and she went off
to the kitchen
where her mum
was getting tea

and you heard her say
Benedict said I was pretty
that’s nice
her mother said

now ask Benedict
if he wants bread and jam
or bread and dripping
and you saw Helen’s

old doll Battered Betty
on an armchair
by the fireplace
staring at you

with that smile
on its face.

replacement friends are real
and I'm the villain here.
I'm sitting in the corner,
watching as green bottles litter the room.

this was exactly what I was expecting.

this is either earned or spent
wrong or right
but I maybe I don't care anymore

and there's many years to come
for consequence to follow karma.

I'm enjoying. 
what might be pain ignored
and lines crossed
morals damaged.

and if it isn't right
I know to lie to myself

the night is never over.

and life just hasn't begun yet.

I want to be
the ponytail holders
you find on your
bedside table
long after I've left
in the morning.

You said you wanted me to come over, and even though it was nearly midnight, I agreed.
I hit every red light between here and your house: start stop wait and wait and wait and start just to stop and wait again, stuck listening to weight-loss infomercials,right-wing talk radio,that god-awful jingle for the lawyer that tries to sound like a wild-west cowboy.
Idling under these red cyclops eyes, I wanted
to tell you that this had to stop, that I was going home, that I’d see you tomorrow, maybe,but I finished the drive and remembered why:
the red scent of your hair;your lips against my neck, saying,“I’m glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re here.”

I would kiss you
until the stars threw themselves from the heavens
and begged to be clothed in flesh and blood
that they might burn
as brightly as we.

I fall in love with impressions,
Fingertips on fickle flesh
In a shroud I sit
As these wisps rise
In a tantalising spiral

Smoke encircles the crevices
In my palms and in my fingers,
Then dances into my nostrils
And I am choking
Retching up blood

I cannot keep breathing much longer,
Coating my heart in tar

What I would give to
be a lone grain within a
Sahara sandstorm
a fragment of drought
scattering itself across
nowhere, singing with
the slow erosion. I long
to be this, to be loved
despite it. You’ll always
drag your fingers through
me

how many grains can
the gusts steal before
a dune is gone? There’s
no such thing as a static
state: Everything dies
still nothing rests.

When a fire cripples
and comes crashing down,
the burning fireflies
that jump up
                                     and out
are the remnants of
the heat that
burns so intensely at
the center of the blaze.
As they
scatter
frantically
in every direction,
they are filled with joy
to be liberated
from their
benevolent captor
only to regret their
emancipation
moments later as
they dissolve into nothing
in the cold of the night.
Embers littered
across the sand like
stars lying against
the canvas of a
dark winter’s eve
resemble the same pattern
that you left me in;
Free
         but lost.