once, there was a bird inside my house
blue tailed and yellow bellied  
not big enough to be much of anything at all  
i had to hold it in my hands to let it out
it was so light i couldn’t feel anything but its taloned feet
digging softly into my palms
and perhaps the sharpest parts of ourselves
make the only impression that lasts.

I read somewhere, a girl saying she couldn’t die with a messy room.
My bin is full
My socks aren’t paired
There’s cups on my desk leaving rings
There’s probably something in the wall
Eating crumbs I leave in crevices
What will happen to it, once I’m gone?
Who’s going to stay awake listening to it scratching if I’m not there?
Who’s going to balance the cups precariously down the stairs
Who’s going to line my shoes against the ottoman
Tuck the sheets in
Who will empty my bin?
How embarrassing, how embarrassing
I cannot die with a messy room
There’s books half-read and stories half-told
And t-shirts I have yet to fold
There’s things in the fridge I’ve yet to eat
And papers that aren’t lined up neat
And there’s things I haven’t thrown away
And things that I have yet to say
And emails I have yet to write
And candles I have yet to light
So death must wait another night, another night, another night
I cannot die with a messy room
No matter how peaceful my little tomb
I have things to do, things to do, things to do
I cannot die with a messy room.

i have a box full of apples
and i give them without looking
i never look down
the apples seem endless
the box unravels forever in my mind
and then my hand scrapes the bottom
nails on gritty wood, clawing up dust
finally i look
and the emptiness looks back
years pass like this
and i carry my body around like an appleless crate
and people ask me for fruit and i give them splinters
i break off panels from the box
its all i have to give
i grip the last sliver of wood, it digs in
i walk forever, but i know
one day i will collapse in an orchard
one day i will look up at the open sky
and my stomach will be full.

there was a gate with a lock
and a nice metal fence
and a wall made of brick
and a tower made of stone
there was fire underneath
barbed wire underneath
this was my home
with a sign underneath
‘trespassers will be shot’
‘survivors will be shot again’

but there was a pick in the lock
and a hole in the fence
a ladder at the wall made of brick

there was a tiny wooden door
at the base of the tower
and the fires had burned it up quick

the footprints were ******, all up the stairs
a cloying smell of smoke, and ruddy burnt hair
and i knew you were coming, i knew you were coming
i could hear you crossing the floor
and nothing had stopped you before
and how could i turn you away?
when nothing had lead you astray
when everything, everything, everything had only ever caused you to stay

and i suppose i could run
and build it again
start with my gate and my lock
but i knew you would follow
with a pick and a ladder
and a smile like an adder
and i knew this time you wouldn’t knock.

they say time convalesces
though, i have doubt
i don’t think time can fix this
not the infinite, not the eternal
not the unending black ribbon of it all
the clocks will all stop before this feeling leaves me
the mountains will turn to rocks
the oceans will turn to deserts
the earth will freeze over a thousand times
the sun will melt everything, the sun will burn it all away
the great tides of time will drown me before this feeling leaves me
and it will be the last thing to leave me
when my eyes close
and my heart stops
and my mind fires its last
when my skin is gone from me, when my insides are gone from me
when my bones erode like a sweet in a warm mouth
this feeling will leave me only then
when there is nothing left
when my body collapses in on itself like the sun
i hope you are given more mercy
i hope you lose this feeling like people lose pencil sharpenings
i hope you forget me like people forget cups of tea
i hope this feeling washes off of you in the shower
i hope you close your eyes and it dissipates like a bad dream
i hope you can hold me on your eyelashes, i hope i am weightless
i hope you can blink without noticing, i hope i don’t make you tired
i hope you can carry the memory of me without remembering me at all, i hope you can talk about me without recalling my name
i hope you can walk through this world without reminders of me
without the shadow of me over everything
without my colours tinting anything
i hope i haven’t stained you the way you stained my mouth red, haven’t darkened you the way you darkened me
i hope you flourish, i hope you grow, i hope all of my ill wishes of you in the past perish
i hope this darkness leaves me first
i wish you only the light.

I get déjà vu like I’ve lived another life
Like I’m in slumber and someone is calling
I wake from sleep
Dragging  figures through with me from the dreamscape
They stand in my room
They reach for my face

I walk into rooms and forget why I’m there
I forget what I’m saying while I’m speaking it
By the time I find a pen to write it down, the thought is gone
I lose words like people lose pencils, lose paperclips
The ghost of reality eludes me
My mind warps my time here
Everything solid turns into smoke

I jump at nothing
I scare easily
My heart races with nothing to cause it
No love, no predator, no ounce of a thrill
It runs for no reason, cries wolf
While I stand in empty fields and see nothing

Have a bought this with me, too?
Have I dragged this through the veil from another existence?
Have I wondered through the gates with my past lives rattling behind me
Like cans strung to matrimony
What was done to me, there, in the lineal stream behind me?
What enticed this fear?
What chased me in the past?
What hunted me then that haunts me now?

21
they say it in different incredulous tones
/twenty-one/
i don’t feel it
i feel the inverse
the mirror opposite
i feel twice as old, i feel twice as young
i am exhausted, i’ve barely begun
i feel sage-weathered and child-naive
jaded-bitter and hopeful-eyed
i shift between the extremes like a planet with no true north
like a compass in gravitational flux
like a weathervane in a storm
i feel as though i should be uneasy
like an anxious figure is due a visit
as though i am too settled
who gave this calm to me?
is this what the years bring with it?
is this the reward for living this long?
this bone-tired weariness - knowing you’ve gone through hardship, knowing you will again
knowing what is to come can’t possibly be worse than what has come before but knowing it will try it’s damnedest anyway?
i am no longer surprised when things are difficult
that is now the default, will nothing be easy ever again?
is the standard set, the bar raised, the difficulty set to highest?
will it be exponential?
will i unravel further?
do i have anything left to give?
with everything the years have taken from me - is it never enough?
how much further?
how much longer?
when can i finally
rest?

my hips are wide-set
healthy, life-bearing, soft enough to set a child upon
to check drawers shut in the kitchenette

my lips are a full, ruddy pink
perfect to keep pursed in a thoughtless silent pout
to be kissed when opened

my ******* shape me into an hourglass
a treble clef in a red dress
my hair is now long enough to draw back from my face
long enough for a mans work roughened hands to run through

too bad i will crop it short again the second i see the sharp gleam of scissors

too bad the only hands that will ever touch me will only ever be as soft as my own

too bad i wrap my chest in gauze until my shirts lie flat

too bad i will not be silent, will draw blood if you come close enough to my teeth

too bad i will never miss a moon of blood until my body no longer has any more blood to give

too bad i will not be consumed by the mouths of the underserving,  
and the only life my body will serve shall be my own.

like crows flock old farm houses
we belong crookedly
you belong crookedly to me

like broken bottles lined up
on the ruins of a wall
like pennies at the base of fountains
like abandoned buildings underwater
like old churches reclaimed by the forests

i wrap my ivy around your bricks and drag you into the earth
i flood the malls and old pool houses and the glass ceiling caves in
i rust the surface of you until no one else can read your worth
i line you up and aim true
in great plumes of black feathered ******, i stand in the fields
and wait for you.

a feeling haunts me  
like a shadow of love, the bare traces of it
like some poor imitation, a figure in a mirror
like crumbs left in a trail into the woods
and if i follow, the trees will darken round me
my bare feet will pad across the forest floor
the moonlight hounds me
and if i find your cottage in the woods somewhere
know i will try not to come in
know i will sit out in the rain for as long as i can
know your fireplace will call to me
know your singing in the kitchen will draw me
know i will press my knees into the sodden earth
and beg myself not to go in
know that i will, anyway, when i can no longer bare it
know that i will hate myself, ardently, for weakness
know that i will love you, hopelessly, forever.

soulmates are an ugly thought
as if we must love one person like we must live one life
as if we must give ourselves in the pursuit of it
like nirvana

love should be distributed like rivers into tributaries
like waterfalls into ravines
love should burst forth from you like rain
you should water the people in your life like trees in rainforests -
like flowerbeds in gardens,  houseplants on windowsills
how dare you think you should drown a person
singularly in an ocean?
have you ever thought how lonely that might be
how utterly unforgiving?

why dare them to swim to the seabed if it is impossible
if they will die before they reach the end?
you should dole out your love in bottles, cups, ice cubes
you should flood the whole basin of your life until
everyone you care for is saturated in it

turn your love into a monsoon
into the drizzle that saves someones crops
into the storm someone gets caught in and relishes
into the pitter-patter drops outside somebodies room

make your love fluid
let it seep into the crevices of the pavement
the cracks in the foundations
and even when it freezes, it shall expand
break something open until it melts again
leave people changed by you
blessed by the memory, craving your return -
replenished all the same.

sometimes
you have to press your thumb between
the cloves of the snakes head
like peeling an apple with a knife
sometimes
you have to hold its maw open on a hinge
so its teeth drip, honey golden
like apple cider vinegar
sometimes
you have to pierce the lid
collect the venom yourself
sometimes
in order to be cured
you have to face the thing that bit you
hold it by the neck
say please, say thank you
and put it back where you found it
but sometimes
rarely, if ever
but sometimes
you have to sever the beasts head
before it can bite you again.

Too many people I've met
Use me as a mediatory point
As some stepping stone to heaven
They climb the rungs of my spine
Like steps to the pearly gates

I am not here to absolve you
I am not some merciful god
You can’t wring forgiveness from me
Like blood from a stone

I am not here to cleanse you
I won’t sweep dirt from your skin
Like some almighty wave -  
If you want my ocean
You will have to drown for it.

do you think he spoke, on the fifth day
before his mistake?
'what beauty, what boundless unerring awe
what great stroke of mighty ingenuity befalls me -‘
his tongue silenced by the sixth

and on the sixth day; man
so let it be written, so let it be done
crudely misspelt, an ink-blotted mess, peeking out from a strikethrough

was the seventh day spent in sleep
or in grief?
in all 6 stages of it, simultaneously?
how could he rest
knowing what his hands had done?

&
if we are made in his image
what ghastly beast sits in his mirror?
what horror portrays him
what stares back from the dark water of a lake?

i wonder if i would incite debate, outrage,
if i was put in front of a judge
i wonder if the extremists would vouch for me
‘fair trial for the monster’
take pity on this ******* waste of air
this weight upon the world
that displaces water in bath tubs
and consumes food from the mouths of the deserving
i wonder if there has ever been such a disgrace
such an utter misuse of oxygen
i wonder if i take up room where someone else could have stood.

this year is my year
i cut my teeth on the years before
i scraged my knees in '15
bled from my bitten tongue in ‘16
'17 saw me merciful and forgiving
and then loveless on the bathroom floor
sitting in bathtubs
my existence held
in the displacement of water in porcelain

this year is my year  
try and take it from my bloodied knuckles
take it from my hanging jaw
the years before chipped away at me
with chisel and work roughened hands
the years before cut me out of marble
carved my mouth closed
swathed me in veils, made my stone flesh
look soft

this year is my year
your chisels will blunt on my skin
and when you turn your back
to find something sharper
i'll slip down the stone steps
leave my veils on your studio chair
and melt out into the night

this year is my year
there’s no material thing keeping me
nothing mortal holds me here
this year i am free to drift
between the realms and rifts of space
i will be interstellar
hung in the place between stars

this year is my year
******* try to take it from me
i wonder if the years before
made you into diamonds too
the only thing that can cut me now
is me.

keep the salt between your teeth
under your tongue
don’t wash yourself of blood
let it dry and crack on your skin
sit bare in the red baked earth when the rains come

keep the chipping paint on your nails
when you want to lick your wounds, refrain
stare people down when they notice
dare them to say something
eat divine fruit with your unclean mouth

spit blood
make lovers kiss the scars on your knuckles
as if they were the rings of kings
don’t brush the gravel from your knees
let strangers see the bloodied mess
through the tears in your jeans

keep ink blotted receipts in your back pocket
loose change, bus tickets, old packs of gum
keep your ******* chin up
your mother used to say
‘you know a mans work by his hands’
leave dried blood under your nails so people will know
exactly the kind of work you do

pick fights with figures in alleyways
if it’s too dark to see aim for the glint of their teeth
in the streetlights phosphorescent glow
know their hands cannot hurt you the way she did
grin when they try their damnedest anyway

scratch your cheeks until you don’t need rouge
blacken your other eye just so you match
watch the water turn pink when you spit into the sink
apply ice where it’s needed
chew blue-raspberry liquorice till your lips change colour

cut off the third finger from your thumb on your left hand
dare someone to speak of matrimony now
sit up on the altar and eat pomegranate seeds
think of persephone kissing hades with her red mouth
leave the empty carcass of the fruit in the pews
step out into the night

skip stones across rivers
dig your fingers into the wet dirt
press yourself face first into the fresh snow
the only thing that can cleanse you now is the earth
so wash your hands off in the stream
grip rocks and lean out over the precipice
stand in the tide of the sea
you’ll never be pretty
but at least now you’ll be clean.

i am overwriting you
i buy your favourite perfume
just to mix it with ammonium
make myself sick at the thought of it
i wear the lingerie you left
until my bigger ******* break the seams
of your c cups
i read the pages of your favourite book
just to tear them out afterward
i make coffee just to pour it down the drain
i wear pink until it’s just another colour in the spectrum
i wear the dress you loved on me and other people love it on me too
i take friends to the places we went, just so they aren’t yours anymore
nothing i have belongs to you now

i do the things you wish you could
i kiss other women
i ****** an older man, just to tick it off my list
i sit in lace i bought with the money i would have spent on you
touch the juice of citrus to my wrists and sip sweet tea
i spend weeks on the other side of the world
sit in the sun until my rings leave white lines on bronze skin
buy myself a moonstone to replace the necklace you got me
bathe myself in rose water, rub my skin with cocoa butter
aloe vera, tea tree, sea salt
scrub until you've not touched a single cell of me
brush my hair like i used to brush yours
softly, softly, slowly
cut it all off just to grow it out again


do not misunderstand me
i do not regret loving you
no force on this earth could do that
it’s just -
your mistake was so sudden.
the love had to go somewhere else
so i poured it inside myself instead
there is so much of it, you see
an abundance, honey golden and sweet
a lifetime full, my body made enough for you forever
so i cut ravines, redirected the source into the sea
all this love you could have had, i’ve given it to me.

this me perches on countertops
naked under her black slip
breathing in the heavy midnight dark
eating lemon slices off the counter

this me says no, and no, and no
this me refuses to give you kindness
refuses to give you anything
unless you earn it from me first
beg me for it
beg me on your hands and knees
offer me ritual sacrifice for my love
i will give nothing for nothing

this me tilts her head to the right
stares you down with two dark eyes
i dare you to try and take something from me now
everything i have is rooted into the foundations
nothing material binds me
all i have is my ******* soul and my bones

this me is finally unstoppable
after being told that what i needed
was to be softer so that others
would not hurt their feet stepping over my spine
i will grow blades out of my back
anyone who steps on me now shall bleed

this me is wrought in vividness
i will not be quietened by you
i will not dim my light so not as to blind you
if you cannot look directly at me, look away
if you cannot stand the sight of blood
shield your eyes from
the bloodied footprints i leave in my wake
if you cannot stand how sour lemons taste
dare not kiss me
my lips bite as much as my teeth.

sleep is my mistress
i do everything she says
when the earthly plain beckons me
she calls me back to bed

sleep is my master
he demands such things of me
he holds me down with his hand
even though i beg and plead

sleep is my creator
they could destroy me or
remake me

sleep is my lover
they could hold me gently or
just break me

sleep is the subtle place betwixt
willingly going and being bewitched
when either way i'm going
it doesn't seem to matter which
just as long as i'm going
i'm going, i'm going.

don’t be defeatist
they say
as if i am not already worn to ruin
as if my fingers have not bled
all i am capable of bleeding
over their pristine paper sheets

just believe in yourself
they say
as if belief alone has ever offered salvation
as if i could will myself into being
as so many others wish they could with god

all you can do is your best
they say
but what if this is my best?
what if i am a husk of a human being
before i reach the age of 30
what if all my light was used up
in a voltage too high
squeezed out of me like a surge
in an electrical storm

what if my peak is behind me
looming above me like atlas
blotting out the sun
and leaving me to get swept up
in the wake of an overachiever
what if i am incapable of what you believed in me
because you pushed me too hard, for too long
because what you needed of me you needed immediately
you took me in your hands like goliath took his stone
wrung me out until i was bloodless
wrote out my worth and found your pen inkless before you’d reached the end

worth is relative
i say
now that i forced you to see your mistake
now that i am bedridden and useless and limp like a doll
now that my good days are not when i write 100 pages
but when i remember to drink water
when i remember to bathe and eat and wake before noon
as if all your pushing just wound me up like a coil
set me tight enough to regress unto the mean

i am doing my best
i say
now that i am barely capable of anything at all
now that the pedestal you put me on looked like a ledge
and you see it for what it was
now that it’s too late to walk back from the gallows
because i’ve already been hung like a ghost
and all i do these days is sway in the wind


i have been defeated
i say
but it was because you put me in the colosseum
with nothing but my tired self leaning on my tired self
and i lay on the floor waiting for the lions to come

i have been defeated
i say
to my defeatist self
because no one stays around to watch a losing fight.

i will be made of love again
just you wait
it will gleam like dew on my skin
spark my eyes
it will fill out my hips
pour into the gaps
between my ribs
i will be full of it
it will burst forth from me
like sunlight
i will be radiant, evergreen
my love will be in overabundance
i will not know what to do with it all
but know this
not a drop of it will be spilt on you
not a dappled ray of light
will be wasted on your skin
my brilliance will not feed you
i will not be eaten.

i think i went about this all wrong
this grief you gave me
because i skipped ahead
read the end
i fell straight through the floorboards
into bargaining
begging, anything, everything
my kingdom for your time

i brushed straight passed denial
i knew what you’d done before you did it
the forth step broke under my feet
it hit me with a vividness
it left me starving, sleepless
i laid there next to you
and felt the beast i thought i’d slain
open up it's hungry maw

my acceptance after was for my sake
a forgiveness of myself for believing you
but never forgiveness of what you did
and it was in this acceptance that i found anger
a stranger, someone who kisses my cheek
and says how tall i’ve grown but it's name i had forgotten
until now, now when it bathes me in it's fire
and i am cleansed by it, burned out of the beast’s jaw

and this cruelty i feel, it is yours alone
my pains in the past brought indifference
so often there was nothing left to fashion into hatred
but, by god, you gave me so much
so much fleshy material, patches of your selfishness
whole sheets of your betrayal, ribbons of your pettiness
/you ******* child/
i can make quilts out of your mistake
murals of this viciousness you’ve given me
i shall wrap it around my naked shoulders and sleep in it.

sometimes i think i see you
i forget what you did
i forget that i left
i'm still standing on that beach
in those corridors
i'm still asleep on the floor in my room

sometimes i wake up next to you
your hair curls around my wrists
i'm blind but for your blue eyes
and i forget myself
i forget what you did
and i say your name without thinking
and my mother would hiss
“don’t talk about that ***** in my house”
and i remember myself
and where i stand

and i realise i'm sick
of being the one with my feet on the ledge
equidistant over the edge
extending my hand down to you
as if i should be forgiven
and i'm sick of saying sorry
for something i never did

sometimes i think i see you
but i’ve learned to be patient
i sit and wait for you to say something
you never would have said
when i loved you
and you do
like clockwork
and i watch you as you tick over

because this forgiveness
is for my own sake
and what you did will never be forgotten
every time the person i loved and the person you are
overlap, begin to blur
i look away, i count to ten
and you sit there,
ticking.

oh, it hurts to talk to me?
how much?
tell me, in ounces
tell me, how many breaths can you take
before your chest feels ragged?
how many days do you go without food?
how many nights do you lie awake?
when you see my face, do you taste blood
from your bitten tongue?
do your teeth ache from how tightly clenched
you have to keep them from spitting poison?
how far does someone have to push you
to make you cruel?
because my answers go like this
weightless
none
weeks and weeks
yes and yes
too far.

they say you will know
when you are dreaming
hands, clocks, mirrors
they say numbers will twist
letters will distort
an ugly tear will be ripped
across the fabric of space and time
but what if i avoid mirrors
what if i struggle with clocks
what if my fingers are always
too many, or too few
what if the material is torn ragged
and no matter how many times
i run my hands along it
i can always feel the stitches?

sometimes my first thought is still you
but it is dull now
like a toothache

sometimes my mind says your name
in the same tone it uses
for poetry

sometimes i sit in bookshops
and catch the ghost
of your lily perfume

but it is a distant thought
a faraway noise
an ephemeral scent

and it is like you are here, yet not
as if you are sharing your essence
with another plane of existence

barely here in your translucence
you sit between realms
equidistant over the edge

it is okay, my love
you can let go now
i am not where you left me.

i am just a pebble on your river bed
if i did not exist, you would have kept flowing
if you had not met me
you would have kept going
and that way, it is an honour
to have such a force of nature
stop on her way to kiss me.

i am starved of you,
oxygen-deprived, empty cell spaces -
i am deficient of you
i grow sickly, and pale
too weak to defend.
the absence of you
fills in the space of my gut,
so hollow am i
i am antimatter
i am a blackhole
i consume all that is not you
and it is never, never enough.