Press to exit
    the door glowed green for the others
pink boiler biohazard suit
     something I was made of once
swaying a net
   something that became made of me
I peer respectively over the edge of the bowl
   drooping on the wall to the left
speaker hits reverb
   hanging in it’s sadness
there was a time I was afraid but not anymore
   extinct to each other
they took her apart
  the end of a new species
I am a body that shouldn’t be here anymore
   last seen to slip through the crack in the door
you are giraffes in human skin
     fitting our insides to our shirts like buttons
I went home in the human bodies
     they took me with them under their skin

Good morning    body
I called you in for a meeting
    because
you can’t sleep                         again
and I just wanted to tell you
        you don’t already seem to know
and no one can read your writing
you already know what you’re wearing tomorrow and you’ll pay the gallery in the morning

and    it's all fine
and you’re very much allowed to yawn     sigh    or take a
deep breath    

I know January keeps trying to go on
and on and on and on
like you’re not already over it
a few weeks ahead of yourself
like we’re not all stuck in Deja-vu
despite the fact that it’s fun to type out
soothing repetition
like a hot tea lavender oil or the last smile on the page
like a consoling yoga chant

it’s time you heard this
where are the words you’re hiding?
when you sit down and say you can’t do this again
I will tell you     I think this might be growing
it was you under the pile of clothes the whole time
holding the remote
murmuring prophetically in the corner
it was you    you see
you already said
you’re everything you know
you’re everything you need

Good morning    body
I called you in to talk to me
for us to meet each other

letters to yourself are the new shopping list

or at least
they’re calming to write when you can’t sleep.

If I looked like I was dying as much as I feel it
my teeth would be the only thing left of my face
the door to an abandoned cabin
my creaking vacant ribcage
would be the only thing left  
I need reminding sometimes
this ****** old place
I call this home
the roof is leaking
the carpet is a funny colour

the brickwork is coming loose
and there’s some kind of invasive plant
growing up the walls
it’s dying from the cold, too
but it’s still home
and while you’re here you’ll
be respectful
you’ll be respectful enough to
remove your shoes
not track mud through the hallways

I can’t always understand what’s she’s saying to me
but me and this territory
have reclaimed each other
there’s a flag in each of our moons
I don’t trust anyone else’s hands in my ribcage pockets
I don’t want to wear anyone else’s smile
It’s taken me an awful long time to see
the light coming through
to sit in it’s warmth
another day always follows the sunset around here
it loops and I know it’s coming
something to finally count on
she knows being around her is a pleasure

home is an abandoned cabin
made of my ribcage
while you’re here you’ll
be respectful
respectful enough
to remove your shoes.

This poem has been waiting for me out back for days
it’s been waiting for me to wake up    see it    offer it a spot next to me under the blanket
but I’m still waking up in a cold sweat in shock from the way it’s eyes find me
this poem has been waiting for me patiently
until now
waiting at the fence with a cowboy hat under one arm and a sad smile tucked under the other
condolences are what it offered me when you were found misplaced cold on a hotel room floor
oh you pretty things
hands bruised knuckles frayed like old rope eyes not meeting the right ends whizzing past the mark every time everyone everyday passes and into something other
pink fingernails scraping the dirt from the side of your face
a thumb brushes under your lip and you can’t smile to meet it at the corner of your mouth
it’s reassuring you at the corner of the street and you chase it off until it becomes a golden glimmer too far ahead
can still hear it whispering
tag you’re    it    somewhere near your left shoulder
the calloused hands are back and they tell you
to stay far away from being with anyone that reminds you of your parents
you go in the opposite direction    trip over a tree root and end up flat on your back
staring at the sky
the way the trees are scared of intimacy too    they won’t hold each other’s boughs    fingers ever stretching    they sustain it to let the forest floor below breathe
and you’re grateful as you settle on it
let your mind go blank    and feel yourself come out of the other side    you want to see the other side of this
where breathing is a bit easier
not such a shallow pool     and you can meet your lovers eyes without a trembling breath paused in your esophagus
not where there’s something rising    and again you keep waking up    
falling in each direction
it goes from tripping over a pavement    through to falling straight through nothing    
feeling rather sick now    can’t remember the glimmer in his eyes    the glint you were before you were born
not even a thought
nothing that could be abused or stretched or held against your own will

I’ve been scrubbing underneath my fingernails
ever since I pressed them into my palm to create half moon shapes
my skin but your imprint    your trauma still in my handbag
I tired to throw it into the sea but it caught a wave each time   and I’d find it each Tuesday
washed up in front of my feet    looking at me sad and sort of forlorn
I couldn’t step on it    put it out of it’s misery
needing to shower every time I hear your name   I want to hear nothing from it

been biting my own lip in the cold again    responses coming out delayed and slow
the skin rash a slow rejection    the bust lip from the holding back screams    the cells inside me growing where they shouldn’t from each time I let you pass through
rip up the carpets
   pull the paper off the walls
and demand I clean up the mess    
I imagine my body telling me a story as things begin to catch up in head    too    trying to find my toolbox in the chaos
letting my brain go fuzzy against it
there’s nothing in here    butting against this wall    nothing good anyways
learning to breathe    learning to lean    letting the rubber band go slack for better reasons

letting the poem catch up    open the hatch on the gate and come inside    a wry smile on her face
she never left
but she was hoping the next time she saw you things would be different
and it washes over    they are
when you can’t breathe remember          when a tsunami hit the house
remember how it took everything away to where it came from    and you smiled
nothing standing
and you thought how beautiful it was
the whole house wrecked
and gone and
you grinned at how lovely nothing could be
to not be overwhelmed for the first time
the walls that trapped you when you thought you were home    taken back
no more cabin fever
how glorious it was having     nothing    but a blank slate    and two hands
how things coming apart can be things repairing themselves    how
everything came together when the walls
came down.

Our          mistakes
mask   themselves
like                     me
outside of
            Sainsbury's

             frantically.

I see you, I think
when I need you most
climbing a bad day,
there you were
the very day after your birthday
robin on a birdfeeder
all will be okay.

Your small face smiles at me from
across the dining room
a dining room with a bed
the bed doesn’t have a frame and your blonde fringe
is
gone
too
cut off
when it started to fall out
I didn’t say the image fit
these days you can hardly move
and I forget for a second my own
losses
I only think of what’s coming
an inhale is stubbing my sternum on fibreglass
while it’s reinforcing some concrete
it’s all the same
I try to hold the past a little tighter

I felt it then
nothing
at first
and then all of a sudden in a burst
an itch
on the roof of my mouth
when I close it
something persistently
ingrown
it catches on a button a crease
a similar in relation smile
and then it is my turn
I smile and tell you
“I’m sorry”
you smile at me like you’re sorry
that I’ve come back to see this.