Printed a couple of poems
onto crisp white pages
My daughter coloured pictures
around words that took ages
Hole punched the left hand side
with Pink wool it is tied

Written and illustrated
by Helen and Chelsea

It's my greatest achievement to date
(beside my daughter, you see)

I became so scared of hurting you
that I stopped
wanting to touch you,

and now
I just wait for other things to do it for me. A
sapling has reached puberty
greening its leaves

while an old oak dies, limbs
creating air
around your face
almost like wind but more like breath:
it

is syrupy
stuck to your chest hair. I do not

need anything more than the knowledge of
how my cotton slip
would pull
against you, or how your skin

reacts when it is
about to rain – how the clouds react
for you.

Without me
you can feel how promises begin
to feel like sea foam

and

why

when you wake up
in my bed every morning, it is because
I whispered
an apology too loudly
and little vibrations touched

something
in your ear. I am sorry for that, too –

sorry for the times we
forgot to take our glasses off
before
you were on top of me

sorry that it takes less than a month for a
habit to form
but years to break them

which is why
I still
want
to touch you

before someone else can show you
how walking barefoot
boosts your immunity system.

It took me months to realize, that sometimes
I wish she hadn't died.
I held her head as life slipped from her eyes
as her heart fluttered its last bumping butterflies.

She really was my only family
Now I sit alone,
in this big wooden house
just as it is
hollow & empty.