The foot of my bed
(where the duvet, entangled in dreams,
holds me hostage between the legs)
is slick with something cool.
Something cold — stark contrast
to the sweat winking amongst leg hair —
caresses, allows airflow to de-stagnate
the locked-in night breath.

She is all eyes and hands
in all the wrong places, long fingers
separating human from other.
Her voice coos like honey
and I am bound to mattress, shivering.

If this were a hotel, there may be a Bible
in the bedside drawer, but I would rather clutch
something else. This is home,
and with no choice but to welcome the night,
I release the dust from under my fingernails,
blessed spit holy between milk thigh.

I have heard tales of angels,
women of fire whose voices, un-silenced,
make ears bleed. I am no stranger
to blood.

I’d been too busy so much of the time,
that the requiem between one and another sunrise
seemed to be far too full of birdsong.
(a love song to the insomniacs of the world,
awake a million times over,
and a million times again for the sleepless
and the sick, world-weary passengers closing,
briefly, their tired eyes against the window of the Earth.)

Let’s say that the whole world is asleep
all at once. Seven and a half billion exhales,
seven and a half billion crumpled duvets
and grasping dream-hands, landing soft blows
against the mattress. What are they dreaming of?
Let’s say that they’re all dreaming of the same thing -
of the apocalypse, a kaleidoscope of little deaths
stretched out across the expanse of a dream.

Time, in dreams, is elongated; stretched out
like the pull of thick cornflour. A person —
any person, can live a thousand lives
in the space just above the nose,
where the eyes don’t meet and the dream wrinkles
the creases of age on the brow. Upon waking,
everyone will be a little bit older, and the great, catastrophic,
unreal World-Ender will fall asleep, a little out of time
with everyone else. The clocks strike into action
again. Just like in the dreams of a thousand lives,
except this time, my feet hit the ground.

we are insignificant lovers, darling,
isn’t that so wonderful? the way
you wear my shirt in bed won’t change
the world, but i have never felt so safe
than when you are drifting between awake
and asleep, incoherent and warm,
all arms and legs and dreams.
you are the mornings, and sunlight
leaks onto your face, the gold
that i can never spend, and when you
smile the day begins, if only for me.

there’s nowhere i’d rather be, no state
i would rather experience other than
the liminality of you. you ask for five
more minutes in bed and how can i deny
you? not when your voice is so soft
and sounds like something i could fall
asleep (or in love) to. i’ve been waiting
for my life to begin for so long
and now i am letting it. i am letting you
in and i am no longer scared to live.

you are the well-deserved afternoon naps,
the falling-into-bed-exhausted sleep.
our skin is soft and shower-wet,
and we let it dry against the cool bedroom air.
when you look at me, i wonder
how you see me, how you smile where i
would frown at my reflection. when it’s dark,
and we’ve watched the stars for long enough,
i’ll feel for your back under the duvet
and rest well.

It’s time to go to sleep.
It’s time to put the weary
mind to rest again,
and hope that it will wake
once more to a fresh day.

Imagine dew drops.
Imagine morning blessing
afternoon, and imagine
seeing it as if for the first time.

If this is what gets you through,
then that’s alright. We’re all
just meandering our way
through life. It’s a pandemic
of words, of empty promises,
of sunrises that are more boring
than spectacular.

There’s actually nothing
to be said for living,
any more. It’s not grand,
or brave, or admirable.
It isn’t even the only option,
nor is it expected.
But we — I — still need permission
to die.

If I’m ending this here,
then it’s up to you. The reader.
If you would like to close this all down,
I won’t hold it against you.
Free me from these pages,
and I’d be grateful if I was able.
And if you want to forget me,
to make me die twice,
then make it quick, and don’t hesitate.

There’s nothing sweeter
than the lick slick thick of it
on her skin. Her, of course,
being Mary, being leg spread
****** pure good girl gone bad
Mary, in holy remembrance.
Are you trying to tell me
that she didn’t have a lesbian phase
in college? That she wasn’t
****** on wine coolers
playing spin the bottle with hair
in her eyes and Joseph only a wet
dream away? When we don’t
count as people I don’t think God
gives a **** if Mary got it on
with another woman. Or maybe
I’m trying to justify blasphemy
with, well, blasphemy.

Put me in a confessional
and I’ll tell you all about angels
with eyes and rings for bodies,
I’ll wax poetic about how may
the Lord be with you, and also
with you, let’s **** to the sermon, babe.
If you want to **** my blood
dry, we’ll mix it into the Communion
wine. Oh, we’re disgusting.
Oh, we’re absolutely going to Hell,
a dingy motel off the motorway
on the way to the middle of ******* nowhere.
I’m the better version of God,
good girl gone violent,
good girl gone taken advantage of,
good girl gone **** it, if God exists,
he can come and stop me himself.

Four clocks on the wall,
telling me that I’m running out of time.
There’s only me in this ghost-town,
keeper of the hands,
and I have to reset each clock
before it develops a mind
of its own.

The problem arises in that I
am flawed, and slow,
and by the time I have reset
the fourth clock,
the first is taunting me
to run back and start it all over
again.

And what’s worse?
I can no longer tell
whether I have been at this
for hours, days, months, even.
My Hell-shackles are the very thing
I am trying to push back.
I could call it a prison
of my own creation,
but I wouldn’t want to plagiarise God.

I’m having a lot of waking dreams,
like I’m hypnotised. Sometimes,
I hear voices telling me what to do
in catastrophising extremes. Set
back the clocks, or you will die one day.
Set back the clocks. Set back the clocks.
Set back the c—

The shower floor
is both blistering
and icy. The water
that has pooled
under my thighs
is colder
than the heat
pounding through
the flesh of my back,
right to my spine.

I like existing
between things.
I like loving so hard
that it hurts,
and hating so violently
that I burn
like the shower-fire.

I do not know
how to do things
in anything other
than extremes.
I’m searching for
an ending
in the middle
of a battlefield,
ripping red raw
welts on my hands.

There’s a reason
behind all of this,
but if I ever find it out,
I am sure that I will die
on impact. Like a rocket
falling from the Heavens.
Like we made Man
into God, and were cast
down in Challenger fire.