I heard you were losing yourself.
I heard you’d been sought out by darkness,
And although I knew how quickly
That unwavering night
Could grind a person to dust,
I prayed that you’d find light
In and around you,
To melt away those shadows.

Years passed,
And there was safety in numbers
All those months, weeks and sunlit days told me
This boy must’ve patched up
His fractured mind;
Surely he’s filled up those black holes
Brimful with glowing remedies
So they can’t eat him alive.

But today the rain falls like tears
To wash away the brine
That clings to our cheeks.
Today there aren’t words
Or explanations,
There’s just an emptiness
That’s filled with
Echoes of you.

The saddest part
Is that in this huge chaotic world,
Full of love and hope and kindred spirits,
There was still a vacuum of solitude
For your aching heart
That made you believe
You were completely
Alone.

But it’s not over, sweet boy,
For as long as your name
Keeps falling out of our mouths
And into our shaking hands
You’ll be lingering at our fingertips,
Unreachable
But somehow
Here.

My life always felt so small,
Like I could only feel the ripples
Because I was throwing the stones
Into the velveteen water lapping at my ankles,
And there was surely no great landscape
Beyond the canyons on my palms;
Surely no magnificent oceans
Behind the tides in my eyes.
Yet I thought I felt everything tonight,
Pressing in from the dimly-lit
Corners of my bedroom.
I thought maybe I could feel
Something fragile and enormous
Made from echoes of the dreams
I had when I was sleeping,
And fractures of the ones I broke
While I was waking.
I thought I felt the rush
Of all the breaths I ever took
And every gasp of air I’ll breathe again,
Woven in and out of each other
Like fading lace.
I remembered a dream I had two nights ago
And wondered why it felt so real,
And why it felt so full of sorrow
Even though everyone was smiling.

This is the strangest and most beautiful ache.
Every atom of my being
Is exhausted
From thinking of you.
Not just in my head,
But a kind of whole-body thought,
Like I’ve been possessed by some
Insidious spirit.
I’m not calling you wicked,
But I might need an exorcism
Pretty soon.

After the other night,
When we finally opened up,
Heart first,
And then you left me,
Heart calling,
I’ve been diving into dark oceans
Without an oxygen tank;
I’ve been weaving nooses
Out of heartstrings
And wrapping them around myself
Like a knotted blanket.
Like a rough cocoon.
Release me as a butterfly.
Let me go alive.
Leave some meat on my bones.

I think I must’ve stitched
My heart to yours,
And the thread’s come undone,
But the scars have almost healed.
It’s going to bleed rivers
When I have to cut them apart again.
Little Siamese hearts,
You can’t stay that way forever.

My daughter’s learning how to swim
But I’m the one who’s drowning,
Face down in an endless sea
While my babies lie in an empty bath;
I think your blackened mind must’ve
Emptied your heart,
So that when you gazed
Into the mouths of screaming babes,
And saw my name written in fear
Cascading from their frozen throats
You could break off a horn from your head
And pray that the holes it left
In my children’s chests
Would release the demons in yours
When they bled.

You cut me open too that day
And doused my heart in flammable despair
Set alight by my fiercest love,
And I know this love and this despair
Will burn entwined beneath my bones
Until all of me is ashes,
Or a million tears can quell the flames.

But how do I tell the little girl
Who’s still learning how to stay afloat
That there’s no ocean deeper than grief,
And no current stronger than fear?

How do I tell this lonely star
That her constellation’s lost in space
And she’ll spend her life being dwarfed
By the crimson shadow of her siblings’ blood?

I see them in her face.
I feel them in my arms that are almost broken from holding so much sorrow.
I remember a time they floated blissful within me,
Like teardrops waiting to fall
Into a black ocean.
Now whenever I cry for them I save the tears
To construct a melancholy sea,
So that maybe one day I can hold my ragged breath,
And dive to the bottom
To see my babies on the sandy floor,
Or maybe my little girl
Will lay me on my back on the mirrored brine,
And teach me how to float.

I saw you in a dream
Standing by a bend in the road;
I recognized your face
In the rear view mirror
And pulled my car over
Onto the gravel.
We both walked into
The same bookshop:
You were looking for
Something old and faded.
Maybe you liked the smell
Of ancient dusted pages,
Where every word’s a whisper
And the paper’s yellow
From year’s of soaking up
Blanket-covered torchlight.
You smiled when you saw my face,
I smiled to see your hair so dark again
And your eyes still so bright.
I don’t remember
What you were wearing,
But I remember your porcelain skin,
And the way you looked
Standing so sweetly in the cold.

There you are at nighttime,
Worlds away from who you’ll be at dawn.
You’re standing so close
I can smell your breath,
Or maybe it’s your hair.
Whatever it is it smells of flowers,
And I can feel my heart
Bloom bloom bloom-ing
Beneath its sheets.
I can see your eyes
Getting light years wider,
Or maybe I’m just getting closer,
But there’s more than one way
For a star to light up the sky.
You could be a whole galaxy if you wanted to.
Do you know that?
Your hair is already the colour of midnight.
Your lips are already the shape of infinity.
You already have planets orbiting your pupils,
And you have everything to teach me
About being so blindingly luminescent
And so ******* fragile
At the same time.

I'm always falling for girls who are arrows shot through the hearts of prodigal sons.

You've been in my head for days.
I've been clinging to your later
Like a shipwrecked sailor
Clings to the shattered bow
As the ocean tries to swallow him whole.
You swallowed me whole,
And you barely even opened your mouth;
Just wide enough for me to taste honey
And see stars that have been three nights creating haloes around my drunken head.

But you'll only hold my hand in the shadows;
You'll only ask me how I am if you know the answer will be
I'm fine
not
I've got you under my skin
But you're under it, girl.
You're seven layers deep,
And suddenly you're rushing through my bloodstream
And filling my body with a five-dime dream
That is only of your face.
Everyone knows that web of red veins
All lead back to the heart.

So I'm putting up fences
But leaving gaps between the posts
So when you’ve circulated my system
and I can feel you tingling electricity in every one of my cells
It’ll look like the bars I’ve put up were to keep you out
But really the space between was to let you in.
I’ll be shining a light so bright that maybe you’ll grow powdered wings
and flutter towards me like a moth who can’t ignore the flame for even one more second.

You’re more like a butterfly though.
When I look at you I see every colour;
I see grace and beauty, and in your voice I hear a melody so sweet it makes me wonder
whether you’re a girl,
Or if maybe you’re a songbird.
Maybe you build a new nest every night
From twigs and feathers and broken hearts.

You showed me a cutting of your old boyfriend’s hair
That you keep in your wallet
Because you dream of recreating him.
I thought if I knew how I’d make an army of this boy for you,
I’d carve his face from limestone
And give him blossoms for eyes
But I’d give him my lips,
So that when you kissed him I’d taste you.

  And it’s not like I’d make you,
But inside my head we’re every day making each other laugh;
We’re every day running through dappled fields,
Calling each other’s names,
Smelling each other’s hair.
It’s the sweetest thing.
That’s all I really want to say
Is that you make me smile and dream,
And sometimes I’m looking at your face
For just a bit longer than you’re looking at mine,
And in the half-light I think,
*Isn’t she beautiful.