I know the toothless women
Who crumple on the streets
The rain bleeds through their cardboard,
The cold drips through their feet

I know the dying children
With anaesthetic arms
The angels crowd around them
With time that burns their palms

I've hugged the brainwashed gangsters
With money drenched in blood
I've heard their broken weeping
While digging up the mud

I've seen the starving faces
Of the tired girls at home
The broken, hectic psyches
That eat them to the bone

I know the burning poets
With a desperate thirst for life
The need for finding soulmates
That pierces like a knife

There's weary public servants
Who risk their lives for good
And prove compassion every day
Yet stay misunderstood

Human love is buried
Beneath the plastic weight
Of angry allegations
And a world that feeds off hate

These people may be messy,
But they're beautiful and real
With hidden dreams and secrets
And ability to feel

We have a place to run to
With lights of peach and gold
Where all the weight is lifted
And all our tales are told

We live in total freedom
So safe beneath the moon
And though it seems ambitious
Our dreams will save us soon

I pop a pomegranate seed.
It bleeds,
Delicate fuchsia delight,
Mineral scented, warm, bright,
Full of nectar and promise
(now wasted)

I pop another one,
In a soft cove on my arm-
A slight dip between two veins -
And watch the blushing drop
Edge closer to my elbow. Stop.

A third time,
With the fury of fear
Tiptoeing listlessly in my mind,
Like raindrops on a rooftop.  
It is sweet, and ******,
A waste of time but an act of god
Nonetheless.

I crave the sound and texture of it,
So a fourth time comes around.
By now, the citrus is overpowering
But I keep going,
For the sake of purity,
For the sake of the shock of vibrance
On deathly pale skin.
  
When my arm is covered in juice,
I give up.
There's no sense in envying the wasted.

Scarlet sticks.

Hey, my love on a far comet,
It's a golden sun kissed 7:42
I'm eating figs, bruise purple,
Plucked from the fridge,
Dipped deep in you.

Hey, my cosmic queen of hearts,
I've been an ocean since peach cloud 8:00
Full of oysters, strange deep gardens
Growing for you,
Eager to wait.

Hey, my bourgeois madam,
It's a bit past 8:15
I'm hearing birds, chirping blue,
And holding you warm,

Within this dream.

Droplets tap the dusty windows
Tipping pleasure on the pane
Dribbles every time the wind blows
Prophesize a hurricane

Kisses linger on the backseat
Desperate to delight in more
Suffocated by the heat, but
When it rains, it starts to pour

Panic storm that quickly closes
Smashing waves upon the sand
Tension tearing up the roses
Stuttered poems, shaking hands

Though the pressure keeps you floating
And the ocean licks its shore
There's no way of sugarcoating
Once it rains, it has to pour

Stick a finger in your ceiling
Let the plants hang onto youth
Sunday jazz, petrichor feeling
Hear it tripping on the roof
Smell it shifting all around you
Leaking through your drying veins
Leave your stagnant dragonfly blue
Open up into the rain

When it rains, it pours
I'll blossom being yours

Downpour cleans the ***** traffic
Rippling madly down the drain
Paints the artist something graphic
While he's waiting for the train

Laughter echoes in the morning
Licking soil and clouds to raw
From the vision that's been dawning
Once you rain, it has to pour

Spitting bombshells pelt your raincoat
Tears in quiet pools of green
Holes inside your getaway boat
Water's sweet but can be mean

You've avoided all the warfare
But the stars rampage for more
Douse the thin comfort you still wear
Once it rains, it starts to pour

Stick a finger in your ceiling
Give the plants a thirsty truth
Fairy lights and freedom feeling
Tunes of our torrential youth
Smell it changing all around you
Bursting through the shrivelled veins
Leave your crippled summertime hue
Open up into the rain

When it rains, it pours,
I'll bloom so much being yours
We're a perfect storm, I guess
Fire has been stopped with less

When it rains it has to pour.

Sometimes, I am a paper girl.
I look in the mirror
To judge my blotches and creases-
I am a pale, thin tissue
That bows to the howling wind
Transparent for anyone who cares enough to look.

If you like pretty pictures, I'm the one for you-
A roll of film scratching laughs
On curious cinema screens
That could run into infinity
Just to fuel your smile.

I soak up your messes willingly:
All the colours that bleed and mix
To form the specks of sadness
In your eyes at 10.p.m
And the grass stains that roll
Down your bare gypsy feet
And the sunflower seeds
That stick to your inky lashes-
These things give an echo of the flavour
I miss.

I am vain
I regularly conjure up poetry on my skin-
Do not give me yours.
I will recite it to my last paper breath
So I can kid myself that paper is power.

I am not the phantom you teach to play piano
Under the helter-skelter moon,
I am far too fragile for that-
My paper cut fingers bend
And bleed light all over the keys.

My hands are a canvas
For anyone's ***** details
For if enough titles are painted on my body then perhaps
I will learn the complex trick
Of gaining depth

And maybe the world will look as full
And real as I read in books
And dance with in music
And maybe my edges will stop being ripped
Or my corners cut
Or my pages burned and tossed aside.

Sometimes, I am this tiny
Vulnerable
Origami creature
And my cream card bones tremble like feathers
A bad caricature of life.

Sometimes I am full of wonder-

But right now, I am this.

Taste the sunlight
Wrap up in the golden thread
The 40 carat golden thread
That leaks like honey on your head

Feel the sunlight
Open up to gamma streams
The seeds of life in gamma streams
That donate such vivacious dreams

Be the sunlight
Buoy the dust motes with your smile
The guileless, butter-melting smile
Illuminating clouds a while

And linger amber in the light.

I've learned to trace
The curves of your name
Through marks on my skin that were all too straight
And I've rubbed them raw-

Scarlet, aching, throbbing,
Irritated because of how many times I've dug my nails
Into the memory of you carved into my shoulder,
Or my wrist, thigh, hip...

The list goes on, and so do you,
Even when the licks of fire turn tamer, whiter, faded
With time that tries to give me relief but makes me
PANIC
Instead,
Because at least when it's all fresh,
I can hear your voice in my ear
And the cut of your jib is outlined by the cut on my... well, anything.

I want your fingers wrapped around my waist
But in my mind's clouded eye you pull away
Every time, and all I feel is rain drops on amber skin, and the blade grips ever tighter.

Normal girls who cry at night and not at sunset
Have stretch marks guiding their insecurity,
But I bet you've never been to a lido with your parents
After getting a new tattoo of a bitter I'll-never-know's name imprinted on your arm...

And if you have, well, you'll never tell me
Because even though I trace you every time I'm reminded of your seaside green glass eyes
I haven't looked the past in the face

Since the last time you said you'd see me soon.

One inhalation of the sky
To separate the murky sea
And reassure you as you cry
The clouds still hover by your knee.

Two puffs of moonlight left behind
As products of the midnight rose
Then let your sorrow be refined
As angels let their weak wings close.

Three champagne bubbles of a laugh
A courtesy sent by a friend
A flash of lightning in the dark
Like vaulting over to the end.

Step four is harder than the rest
As it depends on nature's strain
Abandon sunshine on your quest
And wallow in torrential rain.

And halfway there it's number five
And rhythm marks a saddened truth
A little song to drown alive
A beacon in such inky youth.

A devil's dance at number six
Invest in favouring your greed
Some crime electrifies the mix
Prioritise things you don't need.

At seven let yourself break free
And choke in sympathetic arms
Unscrew the lock and break the key
Because your friends contain some calm.

Except, at eight you'll be alone
Reciting old quotes that apply
And spending hours on your phone
Relating till your eyes are dry

At number nine then, here it is
The scent of fear that smells like grace
You tune your blood to lightly fizz
And brush the tears from off your face

Ten gashes end the whole ordeal
Of shortened breath and shaking hands
Though sunsets bleed the way you feel
No one else will understand

It's not a choice, it's a command.

Now your mind is stressing less
You've cured the chaos with a mess.

shaving dry to set a spark
rub in soap and ride it out
the fingers are so clumsy but
talent brags foam up the mouth

is it the youthful face, or dress  
that clings like foil around the waist?
not self-awareness, but contempt
the true enlightened prophet makes

morality like marbles,
shining silly and misguided;  
never falling out of love, but  
finding better ways to hide it

Honey and lies
Pour from your eyes,
Strip off your skin
And try ours on for size.
If it fits, let it sit,
Let it settle down,
Then wipe off the dirt
And watch us all drown.

Oh, how hard to be trapped underground
Don't make a sound 'cause there's people around
And they don't want to lick our wrists clean
We drink up our syrup
And don't make a scene

Candy canes and you win alone
Sugar glaze and a mind of stone
Sweeter days and you send the rats out
To whittle us down to the bone

Lavender skies
And existing to die
Another world crumbles
And the internet cries
And it fits, doesn't it,
With the human frame?
We learn
We advance
We remain the same.

Oh, how hard to be watching them burn
A crisis returns and the leading man earns
And babies bawl and the gun shots are dire
But we get a thrill from fearing the fire

Candy canes and we choke alone
Sugar glazes and stomachs of stone
Sweeter lies and apathy comes
To whittle us down to the bone.

i enjoy england

with its little houses
hips brushing, faces smushed
together to revel in quaint rumour
among gentrified lilies and pink
lady apples that blush in the summer

its walkways and alleys
dribbles of soft lamplight guiding
the drunkard, moth-brained and ill
with silk threads to a blind spot
of amber where muck can be spilled

the people on transport
with their airy talk, their mindless
silence, heads lolling idly on
windows, eyes crumpling like napkins
against the leaking crumbs of warm scone sun

pretty little England
where exploitation is vintage
and runs like rosé
down the dusty store windows

here we are free to stumble
down streets with sweat
in our hair and manic karaoke
reverberating off the walls
glee drinking is government protected

I'm quite in love with england,
this field of dew and white roses
fed by gore and sweet tradition
where fresh-faced, sunny children play.

We sit there in the morning,
Me in your shirt, you slipping on mine,
Cold coffee in a cup I know you'll leave
But I give to you any way (it's tradition).
We spent last night inches apart
So close that our hair might have switched
Or your eyesight sharpen and mine diminish
To swap our pupils round.
We chew the names of old friends out like popcorn
Barely a breath given to any individual-
Me asking about yours, you teasing about mine
The two of us (mostly) never not in agreement.
It's been this way, one might say,
For 14 years and a little over that, too,
Not that I remember clutching your hand as we lay
Belly to belly on a baby rug with our parents watching.
Your smell becomes mine, so I associate it with home-
Sweet and fresh like candy tulips and soap.

We may as well be one; this is how little our paths diverge.

Flesh hooked on lampposts (ribbon-like)
Railings, bus stops, fences too
Unlooping miles and miles of eager skin
Colouring the pavement with vivid

Bone strung like windchimes (hoisted high)
In all the brightest places
Mainly on rooftops, we have an affinity
The sun splatters them pastel each day

Muscle- candyfloss on benches
Warm, thick (seeps into their mouths)
Chunks of wriggling bliss in the tighest corners
Embossed with sweet disaster sprinkles

Me me me; the essence of Me
My pulse spread out across the city
My veins in the underground
My heart cut up onto various plates
The pieces will take years to be found
And they're not all mine anymore.

But under the ivory moon
When I'm sighing, "I'm lost" to each night
My city rocks me straight to sleep
And walks me through the dying light
So while I'm here, my soul's all right.

If pills are popping
I'll give them a try
Stuff light in my pockets
Let paper planes fly

Rain falls, so why can't I?

then from the grimy floor
of the lavender fields' portaloo swells
an endless summer, and it creeps
up the blood orange walls;
each time i take a breath,
the plastic warbles like an underwater thing
we make little whooshes together  
it swells up and leaks out yellow

like i fear the girl's head will,
across the road,
all shaved and shiny like a soft boiled egg
fit to crack if the wrong car swerves
the wrong way...
anyway,
cancer?
at such a young age?

or the bees outside
springing up cushions,
decorative soaps, honey,
chocolate even out there from the earth
and i can't kick back and laugh
at how much they must be worth
because my god-

i'm scared of bees-

especially with the lavender
mingling with the sweat
in the soft part behind my knees
because what if they chose to stick there
and build empires from my flesh instead?

i'd be like that little girl;
as good as

anyway
sometimes my thighs conduct
like they're made of brass
and there's hail marys in the dust
tiny earthquakes caused by trucks
the tip of an ice cream cone
that isn't soggy

that's good enough

i stayed a little longer
than the trickle did

You complained when the drinks ran out;
Alcohol's synonymous with fun, you said.
I rolled my eyes, presented the concept
Of conversation- you wouldn't give in
And, in exasperation,
I split the bottle on the bone in my leg, shard to shin,
Muttered snidly as I bled,
"Hope you like red".

(Better to be, than keep feeling dead)

The sky rushed down to meet her
Embrace her slow decay
The roots of Terabithia
Wind round her to this day
The mountains she created
Shrink down to kiss her feet
And everywhere she ran
The soil tastes bittersweet

That day, she cracked her being
Against the sharpened *****
Her fingers gently spasming
Still stuck around the rope
And all the world was emerald
It watched her fade away
The birds could barely look and
The sunshine dropped a ray

While seeing this was frightening,
So grim it took my breath,
Who knew I could be jealous

Of Leslie's perfect death?

i have so little of me left

                                                    it's  s l i v e r s, really, silhouettes


a     scatter ing            of cel ls     at be st


                                                       why would i let you have the rest?

backstreets at dusk radiate a soft charm
thoughts trickle down like nightfall on the glass
beneath the urban blue we're out of harm

you tap an aimless rhythm on my arm
laugh at graffiti on the overpass
backstreets at dusk radiate a soft charm

a ****** of words breeze through the evening calm
they pirouette away from conscious clasp
beneath the urban blue we're out of harm

catch a falling leaf in your open palm
we wander slow though the road glimmers fast
backstreets at dusk radiate a soft charm

your eyes blur mellow and lose the alarm
aureate dream dust just beyond our grasp
beneath the urban blue we're out of harm

we fade our wounds within this twilight balm
forget your feet and leave them in the grass
backstreets at dusk radiate a soft charm
beneath the urban blue we're out of harm

Oh, but my darling
It's really the same-
Making you love me
And burning the rain.

You are as frail as summer rain
That shines across the windowpane
At night when moonlight cracks the screens
Of safely organised routines

You walk across this tight rope bare;
Your wounded feet flail in the air
And when it's time for you to fall
The thunder crackling says it all

I've seen you hanging from the sill
Conducting sonnets in the still
Equipped with broken pens and such
And silhouettes that don't mean much

But if by chance you do perfect
The heinous thoughts your words reflect
They'll spy you swinging from the rain;

A bleeding, screaming hurricane.

On the surface of her eyes,
An algal pool in full bloom.
He wades in with his lashes, caught,
Stumbles around in the fishing nets
Soaked to the knee.

The place in which the oxygen should be
Is choked up now, perplexed, verdant,
A floating city of jealous skirts
Buffeted by a harsh March wind...

And further down, he has her pinned
Tracing paths in shallow waters
Close yet distant to seashell ears
Roughening the lilypad surface
With a single feather.

Through algal bloom, she wonders whether
He'll bother wading down to meet
The covert Atlantis beneath his feet.

sunlight licks the kitchen floor,
but sunlight is delirious;
soft-brained, a half-wit,
deaf to the creak and slam of doors
blind to crumpled t-shirts
lacking tact, a clinging idiot
leaning on whitewashed walls
to read what's in the cat scratch

it doesn't understand
it wants to play, it dribbles
it pokes my thighs, it dimples
rolls around in the soil
shimmies in the grasses
brings back the scent of warmth
on its grimy cheeks

it's just a child,
it doesn't know I've lost you
can't smell the stomach acid
or register my shame
it tilts its head, i slap it
it was there, should remember
your soft skin, your name

i melt into my pillow
pull the shutters on my eyes
don't think about the water
or the *****
or the mauve congealing blood
forget about the battered sun
just wait for moon to rise.

I bet you're #$@&%! other girls
who don't brush ***** out their curls
the type that rides santander bikes and
can't fall for people their mate likes, who
play piano when they say they will,  
and write about romantic things, like walking tightropes
blowing glass or #$@&%! in your room in spring

I bet you read to them in Latin, bet
they think you're chatting... utter #$@!
and that there's fairy lights above their beds
where you've cuddled all their friends,
it's almost poly, am i wrong? platonic head, you all get on
yes, and they sing
and look like disney when they're close
they're milkmaids, pornstars, near divine
no plasters needed, they shave fine
;
anyway,
I bet he'd love to #$@& them too,
because they're handy with their hands,
they have craft tables or play the bass in some punk band
and when they go to galleries they understand
why some artists are grouped with others when
to me it's all whatever, i'll see them all whatever

oh and bless! their kisses mean things
and mine are ill-thought-out and grime
they remind you of the time, with me it's always getting late...
i'm an r/truecrime date-  ​
i think that dahmer's in my teeth
not great for someone scared of meat...

and when you, when you, when when, when, um, i

i bet you're #$@&%*! them and more,
i bet he'd love to do it too,
his ice clear veins like Finnish waters
your endless thirst for Athens' daughters
but i don't really want to know,
don't need you randomers to call;
no cigar shops, sketchpad summer,
not the clash or prop-up vogues
what i really need is sunlight
and myself
i miss her most

I want to step out of myself
When I'm lying vertically on seaside rocks
Staring at the place a full moon should be
On the azure petal of a bright sky at noon
Because it would be easy, wouldn't it?

Join a different subjective reality,
Step into an opposite consciousness,
Without this heart that loves too clumsily
(It may be gold, but gold is heavy)
Without stupid desires or the weight
Of sparkling sins like bubbles in champagne
(Come on, girl, think of your grades)

Who's to say we're not a film?
A rattling picture show that keeps skipping
That lasts too long but is never enough
All I want is to have the chance to remember

That I am also a we

That I feel and I'm not alone in that
That we think therefore we are and we are therefore we think
So I try to step into the clouds
And find myself shackled to the ground
On a beach in August without sand.

Physics acts on every one
Of the baffled little parts of me;
Gravity refuses to leave,
Drags my eyelids down to active sleep
(I chase after life in each scene)

And in the morning, right outside,
I fail to hide from the hands of the sun
Its filthy fingers pressed to my skin
Letting the heatrays in so easily
You'd think I was a plant.

(I need it as much as if I were green,
It turns my fears golden
And lights my eyes clean.)

Eager to grab control
From my little follower who rules it all
I pull muscles and harvest bruises-

Newton's third law, impact and force,
Of course:
Heads against shoulders,
Leather and walls,
Thighs against doors,
Lips on lips and disappointed synapses
That serotonin can't quite reach.

If I am blood,
Fresh experience is bleach.
(A dark little figure of speech)

But I light candles sometimes
Just to blow out the feathery flame
To feel temporary, precious
Like rosy musk enhanced by rain
And fill up the tightest corners in my mind.

Life, in the end, is stupidly kind.

And in the evening light, she and I remain,
The world entangled in my limbs,
Breathing in, and out

And in.

Glitter on lips
Doesn't make your words fizz;
They land just because they're free
Manicured nails
Don't allow me to play
The keys are responding to me

Silver and gold
And confetti are sold
With cartoons of sunlight pledged
But look past the sheen
And remember you've seen
The gods from a bookshelf ledge

Glitter on lips
Won't attract fingertips
Your lovers will come to you
Manicured nails
Yet we're still off the rails
But its perfect because it's true.

The earth is tired,
I can feel it-
Slumbering in dried grass,
Scratchy like straw on a cat's head,
Wallowing in auburn fatigue.

The insects sense it, too,
Hovering nearer to ground
With each wafting touch of breeze
Which pushes wrinkled leaves closer
To looming autumnal suicide.

Still, there are patches of deviant green,
Rebels
In a climate that has declared civil war
On itself through crackling heat-
And there's people, so many people,
Not dropping yet like leaves
In colder situations

But riding bikes with pulsing energy,
Yelling vibrant colours
Into dwindling, pastel summer evenings,
Kissing scraped knees and dancing
On concrete in bare feet,
Wiping brows outside cafes and bars,
Or lounging in the lull
Of spluttering sunlight and whistling birds.

Their energy is palpable, close, electric,
The beat of humanity just
Existing
Alone or in groups,
Laughing or sighing,
Filling the universe up to the brim
With our colourful garbage
And cluttered emotion.

Sometimes, I wonder why
We still gravitate to nature  
So easily and whenever we can.

Then I remember how similar
Our souls are to oceans,
And our brains to tree roots,
And our hearts to mountains.

Maybe sometimes, the tired earth
Needs us a little too.

I phase in and out of existence
Like today, for instance
Sunlight shines, my body's fine
Then back to evening distance.

The middle of a pool of salt-
A Eucharist is said to float.
God's dignity created flesh,
A sacrifice the Pope could bless
If he could only find the shoes
To wade inside the choking blue
To pluck the body from the waves;
A child the doves were slow to raise.

Beyond the sunlit smoke and spellbound parks,
Beyond the tongue tied smiles and piercing dark;
Beyond burning wrists and icy stings
Beyond poems that made love to awful things;
The story is painfully simple.

You really loved someone;
Someone didn't love you.

I cup a paper likeness in my hand
A flower, you say, but it's dusted
In prussian blue that stings my eyes
The colour of the end of movies, twilight
Mirrored in the smoky Thames

How can it be a flower? It doesn't breathe
I call it an onion

It spreads its biting petals out in agreement
A reminder of what it is to cry
Halfway through a song even though
I've only just finished laughing
Alcohol will do that

You name it "flower"
After your mother's smile, perhaps,
Or the gentle drift of lightning
In a summer storm, but to me
It is only a vegetable, round, familiar,
Painful with nostalgia, not saccharine
With some aesthetic pinterest sentiment

I grab a stranger's cigarette ****
Litter the paper creation with ashes, watch
The silky tissue wither
Like blind marble turning grey with age

This is what I think of your flower

How can you be happy, hang it on your wall
It's so thin, so bitter and dead
Where is the romance? Confusion rises with the fire
How can you be happy when this is fake

The warmth ****** my fingertips
I stamp it out just in time on the street
Look, the paper
It's crumpled
This is what I think of your flower
This is what I think of your happiness.

We drank cider
And filled our faces
With cheesecake that tasted
Almost as tangy as the blood
That fizzed through (and out) of my veins
As a consequence of you.
And I thought to myself,
The sunlight will always be golden
But I will never again smell cigarette smoke
And think of anyone other than you
With your stupid hyperbolic smile
And if I can't see the way eight pm
Looks beneath your lashes
Or the way the summer hours
Turn your hair into auburn fire
Then I may as well bury my eyes
In the soil that hasn't yet
Managed to kiss your feet.

The silhouettes are all the same
When formed by falling nuclear rain;
And that's the real catastrophe:
No difference between you and me.

But you asked for sunlight
So sunlight you must have, nothing
Apart from spinning gold
In places you will never reach, nothing
Beyond an incendiary bore
A couple thrilled little waves
An abundance of rays, observe how sometimes
They make the flakes of dead skin dance
Turn a few times in the air,
You asked for sunlight
So sit there and watch it before it dissolves
Everything is temporary,
Give it a little smile so it knows
You're still appeased when tasting its glow.

You teach life to mimic art,

Even as you're dying.

Dark-

Yet listen to my heart:

"Now that's a craft worth trying."

The dinner guests have all agreed:
"Why yes, we love the poor;
The softened little sunken eyes-
What's there not to adore?
The way they dress in raw distress
It's flaunted like Dior-
For heaven's sake, there's lots of steak
Who's for a little more?"

Now that the meal is over
The subject's come and passed
The dinner guests compare their crests
Sat smugly on their ***
Now that the sun is setting
The poor rise from the streets
It's time to stumble round again
And scrounge some food to eat.

Give the knots that line my spine
The milky film that clots my eyes
The pride that grips my jaw
To be suspended

Hair blown out in rat-tail haloes
By soft ochre dispersions
To bob, a boat returned
Plunged into the myth of algae
Nymphs that bring dimension to the depths

To be an oil spill clearing canvas
A gliding watercolor rag or
Submerged irradiant water hag
Concealed by a cocoon

The overhang where beads of light
Exaggerate the urban dream
Freed from the stingy binds of gravity
The filthy nihilistic scene above

Just on display way down there
Beneath the ziplocked airless sky
For passers-by to glimpse the paradox
This wilful tragedy of mine

Through a waterlogged trachea
Umbilical cord to godliness stretched
Returned to me mangled and sore
Drowned in the canal of Little Venice.

Darling, your fingertips
Are such a warm shade of life
They leave stains on the water you brush,
Though my blood slips away quite at ease

After you've pulled away
The blueprint for your genesis stays
Penny-shaped, an indent on the surface
Spread outwards in a wingspan and blooming

Encouraged by the breeze, you take root
In the flesh of the fountain through the day
And at night, a new you steps out to greet me
With the new moon
Perhaps I'm dreaming

Ethereal, you appear to me
Dressed in dilute headlight gleam,
The water gives rise to your colours
So I can peer through my curtains, trembling

And watch you, once again,
Washing your blameless hands of me
In the pool of the night sky which blazes
Deep yellow with the blueprint for another you
The cycle continues before my blurry eyes

Maybe this time you'll bring Armageddon down
To see me soon, soon
I'll watch the sky erupt with love in silence

At least when you push me away a third time
I won't have to miss you ever again,
Consumed by ravenous starlight.

The rich herbal infusion of your blood
It blots on paper, makes funny shapes,
You giggle-
Teabag skin stripped by a paperclip,
Torn so easily, it smells like rain
Like the first time your bare feet touched soil

You long to lick it,  
It's the liquified form of tension,
Some inner tangle propelled outwards,
Tempting, tempting,
Like stuffing a yarn doll with its own string;
The re-consumption is only natural,
But allow it still to flow-

It is water let loose from a dam or a hose
That's been blocked with moulding leaves
And now sprays fitfully just because it can,
A thousand explosives set loose
From their trembling captors.

By no means is it neat,
But the sieves of your veins have kept it
Fresh and scarlet with health,
So it isn't unpleasant to look at.

Drain it, let it pour like honey across the table
Where your family sits, silent and traumatised,
Watching the deluge do what it does best.

Pour them a cup of it to have with their slices
Of cake and biscuit crumbs on their plates;
Haemoglobin is good for the brain,
Gentle terror for the soul.

The paper cuts
Breed like the plague
The piano keys are curt
The tune is turning vague  
Life has jammed salt
Right down my throat
So I scrub my tar soul
From the lyrics I wrote
Every night.

But yeah, I've been alright.

Look at me
I'm not wax. I'm still because I'm sad
And I want you to hold me.

Don't put a lighter by my legs
I'm not a candle that can melt
But I am stuck in place
'Cause I want you to hold me.

Look at me, those purple welts
Are there because I carved them
Into me, my flesh, not wax or dough.
My lips are lilac with infection.

All I want is for you to hold me.

Why do you think I'm wax?
Plastic doesn't melt as fast as me
Because I'm made of weakness
(Weakness and bad decisions)
And it's true I'm unresponsive

But your voice gives me goosebumps,
And goosebumps are real.

Surely? Surely you'd reply
If I told you I'd nearly died, wax can't die

Wax can't die or *****.

I'm waiting for a response because
Its 3:19 and I want you to hold me.

The wine stains won't wash out
I hope you do soon, though.

you ask me what I do
when the acid rain comes
to leave ulcers on my cheeks
roughens my skin like eczema,  
teases blood from pockmarked flesh

it's simple and pure, like snow
i feel my best stood at the window
tongue melting with ashen flakes
hailing the nuclear fallout

the orange sky is a cigarette from god
we drag on it like starving lions on antelope
there is spice, sunlight in the dust
it'll clot up the throat, but it's worth it for

the guilty pleasure of knowing
everything else is crumbling, more

the scent of a day dissolved
sweat rolled off, sun slipped
from the crown of the head to the shoulders
where it rests, like a cape, when you touch me

and us sunk and laughing
in the glowing amber light
bronzed vanilla from the bottle
talking about scrapes and the colour jade

you and I and broadway hip-hop
and your mother calls about her meds
that you didn't steal, though you steal time
as the peach dribbles soft into dusk

the softness of a day distant
behind the amber glass where i keep
all my pretty mortal thoughts
where you belong, incendiary,

cracking fizzy out of reach
behind amber on an evening
that puts other springs to shame.

You are the cosmic rays that dance on my face;
Such a soft yet powerful death
Heralded by the fallen angels and wrapped
In gift bubbles of soda and smoke.
Sometimes, you are imperceptible,
The passing pollution that whistles in my ear
And settles slyly in my lungs.
Sometimes, you are background noise
A power plant I have no use for
In a world so driven by sunlight
And I feel I have shrugged off your load...

But then the earth shakes
And your nuclear explodes.

If we ate the rich
We could build playhouses from their bones
Paint fairytales onto marrow
Watch our children dig pixie dust from the grooves
Charleston to their windchime laughter

If we ate the rich
We could pave roads with their teeth
Crushed into twinkling mosaics
Speed in glee down the polished calcium roads
Walk on blooms of gold and lilac at sunset

If we ate the rich
Their skin could line our altars
Or catch the heat slipping through our walls
To warm our hearts or frozen feet
Whichever love was needed most

If we ate the rich
And cleaned our teeth for ligaments
And spat out the fatty gristle
And when all that remained of the last billionaire
Were just an eyesocket and some coins

We could sit back,
Minds and bellies full to the brim,
Fragmented bourgeoisie burps ringing, melodious,
And laugh at those who claimed, in the old days,

"You can't eat money".

Poetry sits like a cat on my chest
It purrs at me,
Licking the tips of my fingers
Pressing its soft beating belly to mine
I used to have to cajole it up here

But I'm so mean to it tonight  

I do not tap its ears or rub its back
Too tired now to plait its fur
And call its affection pretty
But I lie quite still and I try to forget
I'd rather shove it off and have a cigarette.

You are a blank rose doused in wine;
Too thrilling for my pen to hold,
You shed your petals in my mind.

I want to freeze your face in time
But flowers blister in the cold-
You are a blank rose doused in wine.

My morning sunshine makes it fine,
Repaints the waste in liquid gold-
You shed your petals in my mind.

I'm veering off the railway line
Grasp out for hanging vines to hold;
You are a blank rose doused in wine.

The thoughts dissolve in seafoam brine
As if my memory's been sold;
You shed your petals in my mind.

But I still hope to find a sign
A crumpled map into your soul;
You are a blank rose doused in wine,
You shed your petals in my mind.

limbs that sweat in plastic
doctor's bin-bag clothes
hospitals like landfills
landslide horror wards
clap like it's been scripted
casualty- stream live
sunlight voids the distance
summer pressure- vibe
queen is on TV
joke is on the screen
everyone's outside
looking for a sign
bathing in the light
bouncing off the streets
who cares about the queen?