2,960 miles between our legs
And you still claim
That you ache for me.
Your body throbs and moans
With no release,
Mine quakes with longing
For an evening or two.
I keep making these midnight mistakes
And you aren’t stopping me.
Your voice haunts my dreams
Almost as much as the curve of your hips;
There have been weeks of unacknowledged texts
But you follow me like a cat in heat.
You lie to me
And it doesn’t matter.
I’m not waiting for you to love me.
You think that’s what I need.
We’re hedonists, and that’s all.
Neither of us could bear the pain
Of falling in love,
So we won’t.
We’ll just be fingertips under the table
And cutting class
And Friday night bathroom stalls.

414 days since my unworthy eyes
Were granted the sight
Of your otherworldly grace.
A drop of honey down our throats,
My voice becoming yours,
Yours becoming mine.
Your hands were pale and divine,
Fingernails like beautiful talons:
Capable of pain
Yet used with such gentility.
I have never seen so many flaws
That I love so dearly.
Kissable lips,
Bloodied and quivering,
Illuminated by streetlights.
You want my heart
But I ask for it back.
A man of chivalry,
Your quiet intentions confuse me,
And I can’t stand the sight of your
Butterfly eyelashes
And nervous mumblings.
You are so capable of tearing me apart
And I want you to,
But you won’t.
Countless doubts between us,
You could argue my declaration
Of your angelic being,
But you won’t.
You are hidden smiles
And anxious hands
And an otherworldy grace I am unlikely
To ever see again.

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.

There is a low sheet of fog in the field across the way
And I am reminded of that afternoon.
We all remember it, but we don’t speak of it.
I dug up the grass with my bare feet
Running full-fledged somewhere, nowhere.
The holes served as a reminder during the weeks to come.
I collapsed and beat the ground until my fists
Were bruised and I had frightened the birds away.
I screamed out a sob but made no sound,
And I prayed for the day to end
And for you to survive it.
I begged and pleaded under my breath
In a language I didn’t understand.
I stared at the blank sky until I sensed darkness,
And went back inside
To my bed and my photographs and a phone call.
That was the day that I ceased believing in God.

All these years and I don’t think you would
Remember my name.
You struggled with it;
It didn’t fit quite right on your tongue,
A tongue accustomed to the ghost of another language.
But to me, of course,
Every word you spoke
Was gospel.
You’ve done something wicked to me.
No man may take my hand
Without a silent comparison made.
You were my very own Aengus,
And none may live up to that.

I shouldn’t still remember the curve of your waist.
I shouldn’t still long to hear my name on your lips
Again.
I shouldn’t still long to say yours
In the dead of night
When I can recognise by the rise and fall of your chest
That you aren’t yet asleep.

I shouldn’t still be stuck in this reverie.
But I am.
Of course I am.

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.

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.

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.

He is biblical.
I’ve never had the taste for it,
but I will take his communion
and believe in something,
anything.

I’ve been splitting my knuckles on doorframes
just to know some peace.
Broken skin doesn’t hurt like it should.
Where are your healing lips tonight?
Kiss the poetry away from me;
bury it deep and out of sight.
It will find a way to ruin this.
I don’t ask for eternity.
I ask for one lifetime
knowing where your hands have been,
what they have built,
and who they have destroyed.

He is biblical;
I have always worshipped
someone else’s god.

There's **** on the floor of the Blue Line.
It's one in the afternoon,
Tuesday.

This is the poetry
I don't like writing.

About the Fight Club anarchism
without the sense of purpose.

I watch a man cry
over a woman's leftover Chipotle.

Eight feet away:
the passage of pills between palms.
I don't know the contents
any better than they do.

I keep my blind eye
and loose change.

I keep my middle class pride
safe for another day.

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.

It would be so easy
To throw the towel in
And call it a life.

I can’t turn on the television
Because every “Breaking News” story
Makes me cry.
How can I go about my day
Listening to people complain about cold coffee
When a lover is dead
And nothing stays still for a moment?

How do we live like this?

It feels as though my body is collapsing into itself,
An eternal void of instability,
A black hole for wisps of passion.

How do I live like this?

I have known the love of strangers
Thousands of miles away
In bars and silent living rooms.
I have known quiet love,
Felt the fingertips of men sure in the simplicity
Of heterosexuality.
I have known quiet love,
But never the fingertips of women
Terrified of themselves because
They’ve been told they are wrong.

I don’t always have the courage to stand,
And we all know that it is easier to submit.
The true test of human endurance is the ability
To be beaten down time and time and time again
And always get back up.
I’m still standing,
With sore feet and a broken heart.
We are all still standing.
Except for the ones that aren’t.

He asked me why.
It wasn’t the kind of thing that had
An explanation, or needed one.
Still, he asked why.
It was intrinsic.
I had never thought it through before.

It has something that home doesn’t.
He asked what.
It has you. That’s important.
He asked why it mattered, why he mattered.
Everyone else is gone and you’re here with me.

He asked why it meant so much.
Home has no culture of its own.
We are a melting ***.
Our history has us playing a part.
Our countries share a common villain.
The difference is, we became ours.
You didn’t.

He asked why here, why now.
You view this place like I view my own.
You’ll never see it the way I do.
There is no conversation in bars,
Just fingers and tongues and fake names.

You look at me when I speak.

He asked if that was all.
No, of course not.

Those uilleann pipes make me cry.
I have no nation,
No reason for pride.
My songs and stories
Do not hold the same depth.
You tell me who you are
And it means something.

He touched my arm and the universe swallowed me whole.

Do you want to go home? he asked.
Absolutely not.
Do you want to leave? he asked.
*With you, absolutely.

I had forgotten how good the fantasy feels.

I dream soundly without him
when the memory of his hands
puts these tired lungs at ease.
I play with 'hope' on my tongue.
It's beginning to taste sweet.

I will hold him in my arms soon.
We will warm our bellies
with whiskey again,
and I won't walk home alone
this time.

We've grown up in the snow,
with winter in our veins,
something visceral and uniform.
He knows what to do with
these freezing hands of mine.
I ****** my lip
with bite marks
at the thought.

I am leather-bound and blank;
he has so many ways
to fill me up.

It’s difficult to stomach at first,
But once you start,
There’s no sense in stopping.
Eventually you’ll start every morning
With a cup of coffee,
And no matter what happens,
You’ll always remember just how I like it.

A few thousand miles
Is nothing at all
When you know I’m there,
Waiting.

You know that I will always
Answer the phone,
So I anticipate the vibration against my lap
Every time you’re drunk
And spilling out those rhotic words
And it takes me a moment to understand
Everything you say
So I fill the silences with quiet giggles
And you ask me why I’m laughing.

I’m laughing at you.
And I can see the goofy look on your face
Despite the rolling of the Atlantic
And the static it creates.
I blush just as much as I would
With your body next to mine.
I can hear you laughing, too.

Six months,
Just six months.
I hear your heart drop,
Heavy with an unknown sense of longing
For something you’ve never truly felt.
I wish it was sooner,
You say.
I wish it was now.

I am not with you
And that kills me.
No,
Maybe not ‘kills’.

It has become more of a daily injection
Of loneliness and phantom fingers.

I have nothing but my sight and my keyboard
And it isn’t enough.
It will never be enough.

You’ve never seen me blush.
You’ve never felt the circles I trace unknowingly into flesh.
You’ve never heard my convulsing laugh.
You’ve never seen me bare-faced and crying.
You’ve never really seen me.
And I’ve never really seen you.

But I know the grooves of your heart like my own.
I’ve learned your schedule;
I always know when you will disappear
And when you’ll come back.
I loved your beautiful soul first.
I loved you second.

Some days, the pain is easy to bear.
Other days, I want to tear my heart
Straight from my chest,
****** and battered
But free.

I was writing this poem
In your arms.

Six feet beneath you;
You look like a god to me.
Everyone else is on level ground.

I was writing this poem
In the arms of your brother.

It seems as though his body
Was molded especially to fit my own.
He smiled when you didn’t.

I was writing this poem
In the arms of all your friends.

There were no introductions.
I’ll forget them first.
Nice boys, sweet boys.

You close your eyes
When you cower in the corner.
This man, this man isn’t you.
Dry mouths and too much scotch;
Animals for an evening.
Dreams of Edinburgh shattered,
Depression awoken by the bitter air of Los Angeles.
Where do you belong anymore?

Dull sandpaper,
Worn away by these city lights
But you can’t stop.
Surrounded by thousands and
You’re lonely,
Just like the rest of us.
I see those quiet tears.

I was writing this poem
In your arms,
In the arms of your brother,
In the arms of all your friends.

Don’t ask me to choose
Because I won’t.

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.

This house feels so very small.
I can still count the number of steps in the dim-lit stairway.
I can still find the light switch with my eyes closed.
But this is only a vague familiarity.
I keep dropping the bath towel
Stepping into the shower
Because I anticipate a hook
That is no longer there.
The light echoes differently here.
I’d forgotten how it feels
To wake up at 3am,
Shivering.
I’d forgotten just how thin these walls are.
I didn’t even know that there was a lock on the bedroom door.
I learned it quickly.
I won’t forget the sound of fists pounding against cracked wood.

My comfort is in
The line of empty beer bottles by my bedside
And a foreign voice on the phone,
Reminding me that this will all be over soon.
The only thing that’s certain
Is that my home isn’t here anymore.

You said I meant the world to you

because I was the one person

who had never given up.

I was a name

you hadn’t yet added to that list.

You mistook that for love.

I will never give up on you;

that’s the truth.

I will never give up on the notion

that one of these days

you’ll find a way to be happy. 

But it will be with another girl

in another land, 
far from here. 

I pray you never set foot on the soil I’ve tread.


I will give up on us. 

I will give up on the fantasies.

I will never exist to you 

outside of your own self-interest 

and that’s okay.

But that doesn’t mean I have to live with it.

That doesn’t mean I have to stay.

I will never give up on you.

I will give up on you, with me.

This isn't home,
but I will nestle in for the season
and pretend that I belong.
I will bury my face in the curve of his shoulder
and let him play with my fingers
through Nepalese gloves
and he won't even ask
what's going on in that
pretty little head of mine.
We speak of snow and poetry
and all of the girls in his bed
and he admires how straight my spine is
despite the cracks of voice.

I don't think about the distance anymore.
I swear, your name is on my tongue,
to everyone.
I make the effort to say nothing,
only to find I have nothing left to say.
After you,
nothing holds enough importance
to make a conversation of.
I can predict what he will text back
but you,
just when I think I know who you are,
a different man faces me.
I think they all know
that I'm growing tired of these guessing games.

I avoid the boys who worship Bukowski.

They're ones who see ***
As merely an act, a stage performance, a drug.
They use bitter words and drink bitter drinks
That they don't even enjoy.
They smoke cigarettes because they think they're James Dean.
They claim that they cannot escape their dead-end jobs and lives;
In reality, they don't want to. They relish in their misery.
After all, happy stories aren't worth writing about.
Nobody cares about your perfect life; they care about how you failed
Because it makes them feel better about their own despondency.

These boys live for the experience,
Their own Kerouac moments.
The writers obsessed with pain and suffering;
They don't even look for the beauty in beautiful things.
They're the ones who die by their own hands.
They close off their hearts to the love of women.
Women are objects. Women are things with holes
For speaking and for ***.

I am a woman with a heart and a mind and love to give,
And I shall be recognized as such.
In meeting a man the first question I ask is,
"Have you heard of Bukowski?"

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.

It’s your silver tongue;
A night serpent
Between my sheets.
This isn’t right.

You make my world disappear
For a few hours of pleasure,
And I hate you for that.
I hate myself for that.

I have it all,
So why do I still need you?
Is this revenge?

I am weak,
I am so easily led
By your nimble fingertips.
My knees are bruised
And I hate you for that.
I hate myself for that.

I want to stop.
I never want to stop.
No strings attached,
That’s what we promised.

Don’t pretend that you love me.
Don’t pretend that you see beyond flesh.

Lie to me, please, but
Don’t go dragging my emotions into this.
Don’t you dare question my love
For those who aren’t you.
I hate you for that.
I hate myself for that.

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.

I died a few times in the night.
Hungry lips are decades away.
My passport is locked up tight
in the safe in my closet.
I’ve been a poet for so many years now,
but this feeling will always be
ineffable.
All the nudists riding bikes past my window,
all the love songs, all the sad songs,
all the lens flares and strong ‘o’ sounds,
and Jameson, always Jameson;
my hands get shaky
and tap out
you—you—you
on the coffee table
and suddenly I’m spilling drinks on myself
and I need to go for a run
and I feel sick to my stomach
and none of this makes sense.
I see the maintenance man every morning
and he says,
“Just another day in paradise”
and I actually believe him.
It’s easier when you’re so far away
because I don’t have to worry about
having you and then not having you.
I am terrified of the valediction.

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.

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.

His first words to me
asked if she and I were old high school friends.
“We just met.”

All we did was watch and listen.
There was small talk,
but at the first strum
he and I were gone.

I could see him from the corner of my eye,
across the table.
We were just
two bodies,
two drummers’ hearts,
moving rhythmically,
feeling the same thing.
Close, but never touching.
She pulled me away
so I could catch my breath.

I stayed at the back of the room,
above all of the shadows
and the purple lights.
I found him again after it all,
drawn back.
He smiled but his eyes
were just so lost.

He offered stories and questions
and a solo cup of Jameson,
promising something unspoken.
I stained the rim with lipstick
and apologised
but he drank from it anyway.
We drained it, together,
between the shuffling of feet,
the money of strangers,
and his hand on the small of my back.

He asked about my plans for the night
and I couldn’t find the words to say
that I couldn’t think past this moment
with him.
He was every future thought.

He left in a van,
crowded with people,
dragging behind a trailer of cases and guitars,
going somewhere far away.
I left on foot at midnight,
slipping on sidewalk ice,
with a dead phone battery
and a belly full of whiskey.
I fell asleep in my bed,
not knowing how I got there,
but feeling its emptiness
more viciously than usual.

I’ll see him again.

The rose petals in my cocktail
Somehow found a way
To colour your romantic young lips;
I longed to match them with mine,
Bloom a field of thorned kisses between us.
Between the half pints, the martini, and the free shot,
The rest of your face is a blur
But I cannot forget the right side of those thin lips
Curving upward as you spoke,
As you listened to my stories
About a land far away,
With your blue eyes locked on mine.
I rambled and you smiled.
You couldn’t understand my love for the city,
But you were glad I chose Dublin that night.
You asked questions and I didn’t understand
The implications until
The morning when I was sober.
The more I drank the more I wanted you,
But they closed down the bar
And your friends disappeared
And my mouth grew dry as we spoke.
The last ones in,
I’d lost track of time and we were out on the street.
I waited for you to ask me along
But they took me by the arm
And I slept in the bathtub of my hotel room,
Never knowing more than your name,
Never remembering more than your charming drunken smile
And the heat of your breath on my neck,
Inches away,
But never touching.

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.

The curve of his mouth
Echoed the movement of yours,
With its subtleties noticed
Only in the light of day.

The edges blurred.
The caffeine in my veins
Turned alcoholic
And I’m tipsy now,
Tearing up letters
And trying to remember
The taste of your name on my tongue.

His dimples arose
And I saw your blue eyes
In his brown eyes,
Some strange transfiguration
Of my memory.

Fiddling with the napkin,
A worry stone to quell
The jittering in your stomach,
To suffer the silences.
You shouldn’t have let me walk away,
Down the cobblestones
And around the corner of the night.

Sober and shaking with regret
For ages and ages
And I spend the last of my money
On a one-way ticket,
Hoping you’ll be sitting
In the same cracked claret-coloured chair,
Waiting.

Maybe I’ll kiss your cheek this time.
I won’t be afraid of the lipstick stain,
Like before.

I could meet a million people tomorrow
But none of them
Will ever be you
And I hate them for that.

I tried to get through this night
Without your ghost in my bed.
I couldn’t.

I keep having barroom fantasies
Of your stupid, perfect lips
And my hunger for them.
I’m ravenous.

You’ve followed me like
An everlasting echo
That I will never outrun.
I will never find
Someone so utterly divine as you again.
You are nothing more
Than a lucid dream,
But that’s more than I am to you.

I pretend that airports
Are the means to an end,
A new start,
A purgatory for lost souls
Searching for something
Greater than themselves.
Time is not real.
But then I step off the plane
And watch lovers enter
Strong arms at the gate,
See their lips meet,
Watch limbs tangle,
And I drag my suitcase
Along the linoleum,
The broken wheel clicking
With every step.
I look for you,
In every airport
In every city
At every gate
And you’re never there.
My suitcase might as well
Be completely empty.
I have no home
Anywhere in this world
Without you.

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.

You’re social suicide ******* with a neat little bow.
You kiss and tell
In plain view of the world
And the men admire your tenacity.
You don’t pretend to care
So maybe that’s why
You draw me in so effortlessly
With your gangly fingers
And that cross hung limply
Around your neck
With no meaning at all.
I don’t expect more
Than you give;
You don’t give
More than you take.
The cycle repeats
With every moon,
Keeping me up at night
Howling
While I wait for you
And you don’t wait for me
And I never come.
Promises made to myself
That I never keep
Because the tides are rising and falling
But you are always there
In the middle of the sea,
Never changing,
Never growing,
Never feeling anything at all.

A loose arm draped across my abdomen,
Clutching me like I am a childhood teddy bear,
With one eye missing
Because you loved me too much.
In the morning,
Sleepy shuffling of slippers
To hot coffee between palms.
Shared kisses to sweeten the deal,
Tasting of hazelnut and cinnamon,
We are untouchable.
Out in the cold,
Your hand in my ever-freezing hand,
The wind turning our cheeks the most lovely shade of pink
And we’re so quiet
That not even the trees can hear us.
Soft, slow kiss on the lips before I go
And I will think of you all day,
Until I am in your arms again.
The cycle repeats,
And the coffee never runs out.

I wish I had never met you.

You are Apollo, Zeus, and Hercules. You are midnight lullabies. You are drunken fists turned to open hands. You are the one constant presence in hotel rooms in Barcelona, Ibiza, Budapest, New York, everywhere. You are bloodied lips. You are gentle kisses. You are post-nightmare reassurance. You are a bullet to the head. You are toppled sandcastles on Massachusetts shores. You are white walls. You are the brightness of a phone screen in a dark room. You are a bruise that doesn’t go away. You are cold, rosy cheeks. You are morning coffee. You are yellowed pages of forgotten books. You are razor-burned jawlines. You are the crack of billiard *****. You are the hand on my knee beneath the table. You are the moon flooding through thin curtains. You are phantom limbs. You are a foreign name on a foreign tongue. You are the sunrise. You are a memory that doesn’t fade. You are every ******* poem I write.

I wish I had never met you.

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.

I witnessed your birth.
Oak barrel wombs,
unknown fathers.
They presented you with so much pride
that I felt guilty refusing a taste.
So smooth.
Too smooth.
Unnatural.
Fire should not destroy so calmly.

You witnessed my redemption.
Your name on his tongue
returned me to a Dublin distillery
but I did not fear you.
His offering was one of comfort.
You didn’t hurt as much
with his eyes on me,
my lipstick on the rim of his cup.
I was perfectly warm
in the dead of winter.
Fire should not destroy so calmly.

You will witness my unapologetic sins.
I swig straight from the bottle
to prepare for my numb lips against his;
our numb tongues ruining lives.
It won’t hurt anymore.
You gave me courage.
You showed me intimacy, unflinching,
with your solo cup facade.
You put my heart in his hands
and watched us test the waters,
gently.
You will be there
when we collide again.
Fire should not destroy so calmly.

I am open for you—
like cemetery gates at sunrise.
Both deities above and below
warn of dire consequences.
Still I am open for you.

Love, and love, and love.
You must admit there was love
in the speckled blue you left on my neck,
and the tight grip on my hip
beneath flannel sheets and morning eyes.

Not love like caged doves and thrown rice.
Not love like three-bedroom house in the suburbs.
Love like no space in your queen-sized bed.
Love like you showing me how to inhale smoke at 3am.
Love like teeth and tongues and thumbs and thighs.

I am open, fully.
Gaping, expanding, overwhelming.
I am racing heart.
I am goosebumps on your forearm.
I am fingertips gripping shoulderblades.
I am love, I am love, I am love.

It sneaks up on me, some connection
Between my sleeping subconscious
And the universe itself.
I have this dream, this nightmare, this reality:

Her thin limbs entangled with his.
Her mousy hair shimmering in the morning sun;
(I’ve dyed the same colour from mine for years,
But on her, he finds it endearing.)
He kisses her.
It is not memorable,
But everyone remembers.
She is his little secret.
The poems become hers.
I find no liberation from my love for him;
He grants me no such release.
I keep holding on to the thought, the fantasy,
While she holds his body against hers,
Naked and fleshy and warm.
It is her name he whispers.

I wake up in a cold sweat,
And I feel like vomiting.

You tell me
Not to fall in love.

You know that I can’t help
Imagining your sharp cheekbones,
The soft line of your jaw,
The curve of your neck,
The long streak of your abdomen;
All perfect resting places
For my lovesick lips.
I ask you to point out
The places that you have been unkind to
And I kiss them until you believe
That I love them,
And you love them too.

I don’t tell you not to cry
Because you are an ocean,
Fierce and strong,
And sometimes the world is a little too much.
I am a ship;
I have weathered your stormy seas
And I am still pushing on.
I’ve gotten my sea legs
And they’ll never go away again.
I’ve been lost at sea for so long now;
I don’t remember where home was before.
I don’t want to remember, either,
Because you are my home now.

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.

Somewhere,
Written in the margins
Of the history of time
In this universe:
Us.

Your unsteady hand pouring milk.
My unsteady hand on your thigh.
Breath quivers
But it is full and deep.

Someday
Someone
Will write about this night.

A heart doesn't realise how much is missing
Until something makes it whole again.

Somewhere,
Written in the margins of the history of time
In this universe
And all others:
Love,
Whatever that may mean.

Tonight,
There is no love here.
The honey ***,
Once overflowing,
Is full of flies.
I am paper-thin.
I will burn easily.
My teeth aren’t as white as they once were.
My eyes don’t sparkle.
I am blue and purple
And jagged.
I am cold to the touch.
My eyes sting
With cigarette smoke.
My tongue,
With its sandpaper softness,
Will not grace your skin tonight.
Let the black sheets of my bed
Shroud me from moonlight and
The warmth of your hands.
Maybe in the morning
It will be better.
Maybe in the morning
I’ll forget that once
I loved you.
Maybe I’m just a little bit sour.

Let me show you
All the words I cannot find.
Let me write them
On your neck in faded lipstick stains.
Close your eyes.
Listen to my shaking hands.
They have a code of their own,
One that only you can understand.
Listen to them rattle against your chest.
Feel the heat of my breath
Glide over your cheek.
Listen to what it’s telling you.
Feel my teeth tug at your bottom lip.
Let me get as close to you as I can
Without losing myself completely.
I can’t say this aloud.
Just listen to my body,
Decipher the language it speaks, wordlessly.
Somewhere in this mess,
The purest love I could ever muster.
A diamond
In all of our rough.

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.

The soles of my feet have been cemented
To the same plot of land
For years now.

They have offered me my freedom,
A chance to disappear,
But it’s only a concept, isn’t it?

I can unhinge myself from these walls
If I pay a pretty penny.
I’ve never seen green;
Only red.

A chance to earn
What I should be given
Is never allowed,
Because I can’t earn
That pretty penny
Without paying
A pretty penny.
That’s how this all works.

This is all my fault.

The soles of my feet have been cemented
To the same plot of land
For years now
And I’m sinking
Quickly.

I saw a new couple on the subway today.
Her arms were loosely draped around his neck,
Closer to him than his red paisley scarf.
Their legs fit together like puzzle pieces,
Lips locked in perfect unison.
Eyeglasses showing each other’s
Lovesick reflections;
He looked at her like she was Athena,
An infatuated smile never leaving his face.
They giggled quietly,
And for twenty minutes
They were no longer
Beneath grimy Boston streets.
It was Eden,
A utopia of butterflies
And freshly-brushed teeth.

But as I sat in my seat,
No lover of my own to kiss like that,
I wondered how long their honeymoon phase would last.
I watched her get off,
Watched them wiggle their fingers goodbye,
And watched his smile linger for a few minutes,
Then fade.

How long until her stop
Becomes his?
How long until their bodies separate
Into a gentle holding of hands?
How long until that too,
Like every predictable platform,
Becomes routine?
How long until they finally sit down?
How long until her stop
Becomes hers alone?