lips stained with pomegranate juice,
i want to kiss every inch of you;
temporary tattoos to remind you of me.

I never thought that I would have my heart broken by a city.
It wasn't just the men and the music;
It was the eternal hope and subsequent disappointment.

I didn't go there with dreams in a guitar case.
My hands have always been too small to wrap around the neck anyway.
I went for the experience, with a notebook to my name.

The most incredible voices echo through the streets
Like wind through bare New England oaks;
It's haunting, comforting, met with silence.

I leaned over the edge of a balcony and thought,
How many people have jumped?
Because the thing is: you don't make it in Music City.
You try and try and try and try and then you go home.

I met a man on a street corner, a shy, sweet little thing.
Two months later he was back in Dublin, playing in pubs.
A raspy, long-haired rock-and-roll singer howled into the night,
And he didn't sing again for months.
Not until his vocal cords recovered.
Five Scotsmen took the breath away from a hundred people;
They went on "hiatus" a few weeks ago.
But there was such hope in their voices, in their smiles.
And it broke my heart.

I long for Nashvillian streets beneath my feet once more.
I want to feel the desire and passion in the air,
Circulating like cigarette smoke outside the smallest venues.
I risk my sanity by inviting the hopeful and the hopeless into my heart.
At least I'll get a poem or two out of it,
And maybe they'll get a song.

It frightens me that of the billions of people in this world,
You're the one who has complete control over me.
Words said in a moment of desperation,
Over in a second, without hesitation.
Oh God, what is happening to us?

We play hide-and-seek between the vines and the willows.
I can always find you, but part of you is missing.
Your mind slips away as you come closer.
I don't know who you are.
I've can't remember who I am.

We've changed more than I care to admit.
They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder,
But that's not all of the story.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
For something that never existed in the first place.

We were all just lost souls trying to see where we fit.
We were looking for a place to settle down,
A place to call home.

We pretended to love one another,
Rallied together against the boringness of the same old town.
With each passing day we had less to talk about.
We resented each other more the longer we were together.
We created drama out of nothing just to ease our psyches.

Half of them got drunk every weekend just to have a story on Monday,
Made **** jokes and then said **** culture doesn't exist.
A few started doing ****** in the woods;
It was cheap, it was easy,  it numbed the chronic loneliness.

I told my best friend that in six months I would never see him again.
He agreed.

We all said we'd get out when we got the chance.
Only a few of us did.

come back
come back
come back
prove to me that there is something here worth fighting for

i've lost count of the days without you
seasons change without you
we've all got something that we're fighting for
it was only ever you

I dreamt that I found you by the apple trees in my backyard.
That **** crow, pecking at your flesh.
I woke up and I cried.
I think it was then that I realised my heart no longer belongs to me.

I miss you.
I say it now and I'll say it tomorrow.
I'll repeat it every single day of my life,
And even when you're here or I'm there,
I won't stop missing you.

I walked down the street last Wednesday
And tried to imagine how your hand would feel clasped in mine.
I couldn't.

I'm afraid to sleep because I'm afraid to dream of you.
There is no difference between a dream or a nightmare;
They both make me long for you just the same.

Oh, what have you done to me?

I brewed a *** of coffee
And drank it all
In half-hour intervals
Beginning at 9pm
And ending at 10:30.
It was just enough
To keep me from sleeping;
To keep me from dreaming about you.

If you can sleep at night
With your past behind you
And your future ahead,
What is left to dream about?

Leather jackets don't keep you warm.
Disappointment settles into my stomach with each passing minute.
He's forgotten about us.

Second floor railing.
Black Xs on both hands.
Knee between bars.
Brown paper bag at my feet.
A drunk Englishman with no shoes yelling about America and chickens.
He tells us not to go to Charlestown tomorrow;
He is going to rob a bank.
A folk punk band drinking from a flagon,
Screaming and singing lyrics I cannot understand,
But my body still moves with them.

Lights off. Silence.
A text.
Do you want to come to the floor?

She's short. She won't be able to see. It's too crowded now.

I have a spot for you. I'll come escort you.

A bearded man with glazed eyes appears.
He shakes my hand, says,
"Follow me. I have a surprise."

Away from the railing,
People laughing.
"They gave up a railing spot?"
Past the bar, down the stairs.
Working through the crowd.
It's loud. So loud.
Closer and closer.
Where are we going? Where is he bringing us?
Closer and closer.
Past the barricades.
A divider.
Two security guards.
"They're with me tonight," he says. They nod.

"You're kidding, right?" I ask.
"Go on," he smiles.
I hug this man I've just met,
He holds on a second longer.
"Get over there. Don't be shy."
I find myself pressed against the side of stage.
Our railing spot has filled in.
They see us; they're confused.
"I have to go do my job now," he says,
"I'll check on you later."

Each passing second is an eternity.
He turns on the lights.
They appear.
The man who once held my life in a chord.
He is there, before me.
I join the congregation,
Hundreds of words spilling from me in song,
Picked out of the deepest depths of my soul.
I have never felt so alive.

The bass player looks at me dozens of times
During each song.
He watches my lips.
He sees me singing.
I look away.
He looks away.
I look back.
He looks back.
I smile.
He smiles.
Not a word is uttered.

The drummer I hugged two years ago
Is hidden from my view.
But for a moment, we saw one another.
I don't think he recognised me.

Mid-song a hand rests upon my shoulder
And I find a bottle of water placed before me.
I turn to thank my anonymous donor,
And see only the back of his head
And the silhouette of a beard.
He came to check on us.

He pulls the microphone from the stand
And before I can comprehend it,
He is before me, inches away, if only for a moment.
I am crippled by my own love and all I can do
Is sing along with him.
Two hours pass by in a flash.

He turns on the house lights.
The crowd begins to disperse.
The Union Jack steps on cans and sticky puddles of alcohol.
I find my bearded god and hug him again.
He reeks of marijuana but he does his job well.
This night changed my life and he knows it.

We go and visit the drunken Englishman.
I hand him a few bills and he cracks a few jokes.
I walk away with a cd and a smile,
He tells us not to go to Charlestown tomorrow.

I carry my paper bag to the merch line.
A middle-aged, ***-bellied man greets me,
Compliments my hat, tries to speak to me further.
I thank him and turn my back.
My loneliness appears to be an invitation.
I quietly decline.

The line dwindles down until I finally hand her the bag.
"Frank told me to bring these to you."
She questions me, I explain what they are,
And her face lights up.
"Oh! Frank told me about this! That's so kind of you!" she gushes,
"I'll put them...I'll put them on the bus!"
I thank her profusely.
An exchange of words and bills
And we are ushered away into the crisp September air.

I watch a man fall asleep standing up on the sidewalk.

I fall asleep in my own bed, dreaming of flickering lights
And an Englishman.

They told me to take caution.
Boys like you make a mess out of girls like me.
Splatter me across the wall like a bucket of paint when you're upset.
I'll submit.

I have been wrapping myself tighter around your finger
With each passing week of your silence.
Maybe one day I will sever it
And you will feel me then.

Run, they told me. Run.
I could never bring myself to do it fully.
My shoes were wrong, I ran out of breath;
I ended up tired and sore.

I told myself that I was done.
But then you came back,
With your tears and your grasping hands,
And I crumbled beside you.

I cannot bear to see your suffering,
And you know this to be true.
We both know that you pretend
Not to see mine.

They drip down walls,
Melt into asphalt
And seep into the earth,
Unnoticed.
Cities full of similar shapes,
And I will pick them out of the crowd
Every single time.
I do not need to see anything else.
I will always recognise the biggest mistake I ever made.

I am aching
And skin
And bedsheets
And nothing else.

My hair is a disheveled sunset against a stark white pillow,
A flame that does not die down.
The intricacies of my fingertips
Have not been touched in ages.
Something inside me longs for the touch of another.

A melancholy Scotsman whispers lullabies
To the backdrop of an electric fire.
My heart knows not how to rest.
I want to feel him, I want to hear him,
I want to know that we're both alive.

A hand lay upon my shoulder today;
Tomorrow it shall be on a plane back to LA.
Please tell me what it's like to have someone who stays.

Reality or reverie,
We burn the candle at both ends
Until nothing remains.
Balancing on city curbs, hand in hand;
A listless distraction.
Where does this train stop?
Spider-silk eyelashes catch the light
Of the sparks between our fingertips.
We burn out our corneas with ease
And suffer through the pain
Of our poetry and our freedom.

Could you love me?
No, of course not.
Your spirit is reckless and wild,
And no lover's touch could tame you.

You stay up all night just to watch the sun rise.
You're too late.
You fall in love with long-legged women
In cities you're just passing through.
You howl at the sun,
Begging for rebellion.
We know you better than you do.
You long for a hand to hold,
A hand to release you,
A hand to pull you from the edge,
And hand to push you off.

Maybe you could love me.
But I could not love you enough
To let you go.

Some days I fear that the poet in me
Has killed herself.
Today was not one of those days.

Today I opened my heart,
Who in return opened my eyes.
I drifted into the middle of a Massachusetts river,
The horizon separating marsh weeds from sky.
A child, pure as a pearl,
Sang lullabies from my lap and called out my name.
I kissed her salty cheek and my soul flew.
The wind blew my auburn hair and I was free.

A gentle paddle in an old kayak,
The only sounds being that of my oar.
Splash, whoosh, splash, whoosh.
I was at peace with the world,
And more importantly,
I was at peace with myself.

A camera could not capture the race of my heart
Nor the glimmer in my eyes.
Love and belonging and bliss lap against my shores.

Last night,
I succumbed to the anaesthesia
Of the breaking dawn.
I dreamt of you beside me,
My fingertips caressing your shoulder blades,
Running up and down your spine,
Playing your vertebrae like an ivory-keyed piano.
I could nearly hear the sound of your breath,
Peaceful and steady,
The nightmares dissolved.
When I awoke
In my sleep-deprived stupor,
I smiled at you,
Though you did not rest beside me.

We drink coffee on a rooftop in Edinburgh.
We've been awake for so long
That sunrise has become sunset.
(Or is it the other way around?)
I long to press my lips against every inch of you,
Inked and bare,
Until nothing is left uncorrupted.
I will not come down
Before we have felt each other everywhere,
At last at peace with the skin we hate most.
My heart races for you,
Like some sort of manic tribal drum,
And you smile,
That sheepish little smile.
My capillaries coil around your finger like wires.
I am yours, purely yours.

Let the storms erupt,
Let the clouds turn to ash and dust,
Let the world collapse within itself.
We will raise the sky together,
Stars and fire and all,
In our caffeinated stupor and young vigor.
We're only getting older now.
We can be fools.
We should be fools.
We could jump from this rooftop
Or we could take the stairs.

It's all a big cliché, isn't it?
Meteor showers, shooting stars, wishes.
Are you watching it too?
I've never been the perfect girl;
I've more flaws than I do gnawed fingernails.
But I could do so right by you.

I stood in the middle of an insect-riddled field,
Light pollution seeping into my panoramic view.
Infinitesimal stars and hopes and dreams around me
And yet all I wished for was you.

I grew up with the silly idea
That boys would write poetry
For the girl in the back of the coffeeshop.

It’s far from romantic
The countless times I’ve walked that road,
Entered that C- bakery,
And rested my elbows on a wobbly table.
Once, I twisted my ankle,
Caked my jeans in mud and embarrassment.
Another time, I fell in a puddle.
Nobody helped me up or dried me off.
Hundreds of dollars wasted on cheap coffee
That only kept me up long enough
To realise how low I was.

I wrote poems for boys in the coffeeshop,
Adam and all the rest.
They didn’t write any for me.

A time zone or two
And an ocean of blue
Keep us from holding our breath.
We’re fire and ice, you and I,
Can’t you see?
Longing for warmth,
Melting too quickly.
My suffering ends
And your depression begins.
My happiness fades
And yours starts anew.
I’m always down
And you’re always up,
Or it’s the other way ‘round.

But I’m still so in love with you.

You were cigarette smoke and breaking waves on the shores of distant lands. You were crooked teeth and chocolate breath. You were black coffee and shaggy hair. You were hazel eyes and arms I would have died in. You were soft cotton shirts and ***** work boots. You were Bukowski’s good side. You were pool tables and wool hats. You were black curtains. You were everything and more. You were the one that got away. You were.

Take my hand in yours.

Show me Nocturne: Blue and Gold.
Comment on how the blue of the Thames fading to grey
Reminds you of my sad moods.
Slip in the fact that Whistler was born in the state where I grew up,
And died in the country that you call home.
Make it seem like fate, not coincidence.

Show me Newton.
Talk about Blake’s offense at deism.
Watch the mention of religion skitter past my ears
And right over my head.

Show me Norham Castle, Sunrise.
We’ll squint to make out shapes hidden by sun rays,
But it will only blur more.
We’ll take a few steps back and will see it clearly,
Before strangers obstruct our view.
I’ll comment on how the colours look like that of a child’s nursery.

Show me The Awakening Conscience.
I’ll ask you what you think is happening.
You’ll say that you don’t know.
I’ll point out the absence of a ring on her finger,
A mistress, she was.
She longs for something else.
Annie Miller’s beauty encapsulated in a single painting,
Her own life reflected for a moment.

Show me Beata Beatrix.
I’ll gasp with pleasure,
Recite bits of my favourite Rossetti poems for you to hear.
I’ll tell you the story of Rossetti and Lizzie Siddal,
And though you’ve heard it before,
You listen as though you haven’t.

Show me Ophelia.
Kiss my cheek as I gaze upon it, wide-eyed.
Tell me that I am as fair as Ophelia herself,
And I will smile while I marvel in Lizzie’s grace,
Better depicted by Millais
Than by her own husband.

As we leave
And pass the statue of Millais himself,
We shall embark on our own Shakespearean adventure.
To meet Ophelia’s fate,
Content and unaware of danger
Then drowned all at once,
I pray we refrain.

I wrote you letters
And kept them hidden
Beneath my bed
Or in my jewellery box
Or in my shirt pockets.
Each time I found one,
I read it and then took a match to it.
It was my way
Of slowly falling out of love with you.
At least that’s what I told myself.

I was beautiful once.
With hair the colour of red wine
And a smile to illuminate
The deepest caverns of his heart,
I was happy
And that made me beautiful.
My toes dug into seaside sand
Until I was numb beneath the setting sun.
He called me “baby”
And told me to look at the birds over there.
He told me I was beautiful
And I smiled.
Standing in front of a bush full of bees,
Or under a bridge,
Letting the rust gather beneath my fingernails,
I felt beautiful once.

my heart is beating out of my chest.
i am lonely but in love.
i have no hands to hold nor lips to kiss
and yet i rejoice in an empty bed.
i long for him, an ocean away,
and yet too far from my thoughts.
two years and a decade too late.
i crave the solitude of an irish cottage,
thought i cannot help myself in wondering
if i’d be happier with him there.

coughing up something.
heart, soul, lungs,
i don’t know.
nails bitten down too far.
it hurts to touch you,
it hurts to touch me.
every shape,
every curve,
every inch
feels wrong.
my own skin is a prison
for the ethereal being
i long to be.
i am stuck,
hating myself,
loving you.