I've run myself ragged
chasing phantoms
and false prophets.
Willing ignorance
and somber idolatry
runs amok throughout
the trails that I leave
and I am not sorry.

I will not settle
for cheap emotions
and halfway love.
I need to feel it
radiating from every pore,
overflowing from each
long, pale fingertip
like sweet honey.

I need it to be real,
so thick that it's tangible,
instilling feelings akin
to those that lilacs
and wild lupine stir.

I need it to be
you and I
moving onward
and upwards
as two birds
in unison.

I need it to be
breathtakingly
ordinary.

She tears through
her insecurities
on fridays and saturdays,
shameless small talk
with bouncers,
and she dresses to ****,
railing lines at pre drink,
and talking up free drinks
with ***** hawks
circulating the scintillations
of spotlights for victims
of a cockcrow regret,
she picks and chooses
and it’s easy for her,
finding a jawline
in a haystack seems
almost inevitable
when she did her make up
in front of a mirror,
not 3 hours prior,
she fills her empty
bed with cheap cologne
and sweat and gel
to only empty again
not 3 hours later.

Lately I've thought
that I was becoming
quite skilled at building walls
and burning bridges.
It starts to feel natural
after you do it so many times,
with every new lover.
new beginnings
always looked so appealing.

And then something shifted
as you smiled at me;
and I panicked as I felt
the walls crumbling
and something like love
seeped in and held me fast.

I let the words that sit
festering in my brain
pour out into the space
between our lips
and you drank them in
like water,
gifting me with
sweet repose
like an inconspicuous
land mine.

I can smell your laughter on my skin for days
And your smile lights my room long after you've gone

And I've been homesick every where
Since I turned seventeen
But I don't have that yearning lately,

You are lavender walls
And cherrywood floors

You are warm vanilla cuddles
And ruby red grapefruit kisses

And I am warm in the dead of winter,

And I am home inside of myself

And I've been trying to find the
Words to tell you,

That my heart skips rocks
Over the lake you've laid down

And I'm jumping in puddles
When you start to rain

I'm admitting things I've kept
A secret
From myself
With your soft hands
gently wrapped
Around my throat

I count my blessings
When the sunlight swallows my bedroom

I'm not a zombie
Rising from a coffin

I'm a kid
Excited to begin

Every day

I'm excited to begin

Please don't leave

I drop you off in your gravel driveway
And I feel whole the whole way home

Please don't leave

I touch your jawbone
And my teeth are
No longer daggers
Inside my gums

The letters that fall
From my tongue
Are rose petals,
Sugar,
Tea leafs,
Where they once were
Dust
And dirt
And blood

Please don't leave me
Spitting up charcoal again

I cough cocoa powder

I am getting younger every day

I cry maple syrup

I am getting safer every day

I bleed pomegranate

I am getting stronger every day

Please stay

Meet me for coffee
At the corner of 29th Avenue
On a sunny summers day
Some time in June
2020

Meet me
Next to the fountain in Trafalgar Square
It will be a frosty
New Year's Eve
2021

Meet me
Just past the junction
Junction 21
Not sure where it's near to
But I need to follow the M4 to get there
I'll be driving a red Morris minor
2pm
2022

Meet me
At the end of my street
You should know where to find me
If you've kept all the above dates that is
It could be raining
Bring a brolly
12 noon
April 2023


Meet me
Come celebrate my birthday
Its cold outside so wear a warm coat
Don't be late
I've missed you like crazy
12 Feb
2024

I think my lips are chapped because I've kissed so many boys who don't love me.
You ask me 'what do you taste like?' I don't think its very **** to say regret and sadness.
You say 'when can I taste you' My taste has been passed around so many tongues there is nothing left for you.

He tells me 'I'm here for you, I'll always be here for you' as he kisses my neck. The next week the bite mark on my belly is fading and I can barely remember the colour of your eyes.

My sister says 'you will change your mind' she says, 'all woman want to be mothers'.
I have stumbled in at 4am with the taste of strangers in my throat to see my mother sitting upright waiting for me, I think of the night I spent crying on my mothers lap in a&e;, certain I couldn't make it through the day, the way my brother scowls at my mother, my sister telling her that 'you could've done more, you could've walked away.' I. Dont. Want. Children.

My mum tells me she is old, she is tired. She desperately needs a man to hold doors open for her and carry her shopping. I am trying to remember that needing someone does not mean you are weak.

My grandmother gave me waist beads to encourage fertility. She says 'god gave you those hips to birth children'. Ive never told her that i lost my faith in god the year i lost my virginity.  And if there is a god, i don't want his ******* fertility. I want to break these beads and let drugs engulf me to prove my grandmothers blind faith wrong.
I laugh and pray before our meal and kiss her forehead, 'god bless'.

He tells me 'i know youre *****, its natural'. I laugh and play along for his delight. 'women are just like toys, television, easy puzzles'. I think of my father beating my mother, my fathers face all the men ive walked past in the street. My mothers face is my own.

'if you don't want boys to touch you you shouldn't wear tight clothes'. I think of all the boys who have run their fingers over my back when i was dressed in clothes from neck to ankle. I wonder if god is a sexist man. I wonder if there's any men who aren't implicitly sexist.

He tells me, 'I'll spend hours on you, I'll make you believe in god again'. There is nothing I can do but laugh. I ask him, 'does your mother know you speak to girls like this?'
He ***** his teeth, 'do you always have to be so difficult?'  
I kiss him but I think of his mother, foreign and lonely, 2 sons and no husband.

He says 'you need a real man' I think of all the other boys who have told me that before leaving me.
He wants to know why I'm in hospital so much, 'how are we going love each other when you can't tell me what's wrong with you' I don't want to tell him that I've cut my arms so badly I can see god in my blood, and sometimes the voice in my head screams so loud I black out. I kiss his chest. He doesn't ask again. I resent him for that.

I've been ignoring my fathers phone calls for two weeks because his voice sounds like absence and I don't want to hear another 'I love you' from a man who doesn't know my secrets.