the sky is so blue,
the ******
topsy-turvy vase dribbling sun-spit
crashing around
with its mucus rays
stumbling, heaving on doorsteps
punching drunkenly through windows
giddy and chaotic as it *****
air greedily upwards
windmilling glory
away from us as we exhale-
"what a perfect day
the perfect day to stay
inside
the perfect day to **** away"
the swaying, nauseous people say,
and the sky, the tipsy ******,
giggles as it throws itself
blue, unsubtle, with ripped tights,
glistening thighs, come-hither eyes,
unsteady, with love,
at the trees.

Scratching itches with bottle caps, grooves
In my brain cut from diamonds and blood
Flinging my shadow like darts at a wall
Frustration, when dizzied, transforms into love

Scabs and guitar riffs I'd shred with my teeth
Gnawing her lips to bake blackberry flesh
Stamping on baubles, an aureate hail
In a winter that reeks of sweet summer death

This circus of wildfire charcoals my hair
I'm yearning to stay but it blazes me out
Cold air and bored stares, a knock on the jaw
I thought I had finished bedazzling myself

I've underwhelmed the brightness I chase
Adrenaline fawns over prettier girls
Cold and alone in a fitful night's sleep
When you're fevered and worn, the splinters stick deep.

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

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.

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.

will you come up though?
will i ****
love the bones of you
bones is right

we were circumstance
and christ did we **** the fat
out of that
ripped through the tendons
pummelled the muscle  
gnawed through the marrow
even the cat wouldn't touch us
way we are now and she'll
eat about anything

well.. there's still my thigh
to pummel i mean
in biology until end of term
then summer  
you can watch me puke in bushes
yes summer
blind drunk i won't know you
that ways better
we kiss and act like strangers
so sweet then to each other

all this hatred at the end
they say that that's familiar
it's funny, that resentment
it's just love in a wig
pig, ex PM
that's us
that's us
we are far too similar
for our own good.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Blackout blinds and ditzy drunk, I lost
My breath it tangled with your fairy lights
Words like ripped petals collapsed, sad,
On your sheets and we are such teenage cliches
I cried about him one more time when I got home

It felt like the moon, fuzzy and good, you said
I was telling the truth but the vermouth
Hinted I was lying just a little and I was
Undressed to my bra watching fake plastic stars
Swimming in positive vibrations from your speaker
Thanking you for caring

We weren't ****** but we acted like crackheads and still
I cried about him one more time when I got home
The solar system came full circle, it wasn't
Solipsisim anymore, I'm not alone
It's not a simulation I really am hungover
And very glad to be a part of your universe.

Dehydration will
Crimp and squeeze you
Wrinkle your bones like paper fans
Lacerate your doily throats
Won't you package water for it?

Starvation yearns to
Yank and stretch you
Flesh out the pitfalls in your face
Coax out your cabernet ribs
Won't you import produce for it?

Exhaustion could
Squander your crystalline minds
Flay you right down to the core
Burn you out like your kings of Denmark
Don't think, build homes for it.

Apathy will tenderly itch at your lips
Plaster your eyes, emblazon your ribs
Pepper regrets in your Vogue cigarettes

But let you live, collect your pay
Be a friendly face, at the end of the day.

spin the table knock the room
off its axis children gurgling ***
through juice box straws milk teeth
burst the confines of adult gums
knuckles fly like ****** dice
cards are chewed crackers shuffled

in the corner hear the ******* pray
furious at hosts of gay angels singing
his mother enchanted by female flesh
wobbling like jelly in the grape bowls
she'll be stalking some skirt tonight
he's yanking his hair to stop yanking chains

the political right rests a hand on her shoulder
the girl is happysad at the rain indoors
they slosh around and dance to silence she
is sadhappy and knows how her father thinks
siblings that weren't hers rule family frames
free market capitalism shines like a baby

it is a balmy november spring nobody
is ever hungover aroused or defeated
love takes three spins of a screwdriver to trap
there is something sweet in the council mail
they dangle by the ears from the base of the sofa
the ladies are eating cigars to keep warm

though they don't need to;
it's always sunny in england.

slipping drinks into cups
for scientific mirth only
a few OH groups and she totters
wobbling on cherry jelly knees

glass ****** dry like mango
back on your feet with lightning
shocking your hair into witchy frizz
clamping fairy dust in bottle necks

third fourth fifth keep on
consensual poisoning can't be
morally rotting perverted frissons
of thrill you feel as they sway
have something to do with the hour

incapacitation by grace
soft peach smile as you pour
generous purge juice on filthy ice-

if her blood orange brain clumps on concrete
will the fruit of control taste too nice?

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)

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.

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.

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.

I can taste it all now,
The sunlight like glazed sugar,
The caramel of silence in the woods.

Blood bleeds away with water
The rapids carry it quickly through
So no sour iron stains the soil.
There is no laughter from her anymore
Just the resigned

Crack

Of a neck supported by thistles
As it rolls like a stone off the shoulder.
All around, the world looks away
Blushes bashfully a few times
So the sky projects the warmest blue
A little compensation for the tragedy.

No soul remains *******
She's bubbles, gone, evaporated
The little thoughts she had left
Trickling in amber down her tongue
While the bees inspect her honey hair.

Later on, she slides further in the water
And they assume she has drowned.
Everyone simply ignores the mermaid fins
That blossom across her back
And claims she couldn't swim.

At least she died looking up.

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?

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

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?

Warmth drools like a baby
On the grime grey rooftops
Liberalism spawned dystopian blocks
The windows are never washed there
It's the rain that reveals their guts

On your bus stop murders and attacks
Rife on the Piccadilly line, the hum
Of melted Smirnoff bottle angels lays
A drunken lesbian kiss of delight
Party people live for the moment

When you step outside in the morning
To work for callus marks and gas, the trees
That line your route bob thick punk manes
In time to the beat of the rocking trains
They know what The Clash is about

And when you come back from a getaway
Seaside trip with sand in all your cracks
A little salt on your lips, an assault in the paper
You wallow in the polluted city allure
Like you're breathing in god's ****** incense

There it lies, the roll-up skyline
That would make any two-shoed god give in
To railway bridge peer pressure on his chest
At 4 am with deodorant blowtorches spinning
Leaving entrails of delight in the filthy half-blackness

It's a privilege to live in for sure.

unwashed shrimp; sick pink wishes
putrid puking and hot weather flashes
headaches and nausea for forgetting me
raw plates of karmic misery, i drank too much

I'll weather it with you through the phone
congealed seafood skies when i was alone
bred the bacteria that made you so ill
petri dish summer, i never wanted
to **** you, i drank too much

forty degrees like a tenerife beach
maybe from now you'll remain within reach
below the surface marine life bubbles
the fish of my thoughts will swim out of trouble
from now on
maybe I won't drink too much

saturated with ***** don't watch the news
be it
throw your head back so the oil of the sun can
slip a ***** leer down your open trachea
brave and the knives can't inspire the fear
glad you're here?

great

empty just pools only watering holes
don't move
not an ant in your plasma gold cold and clear
out of ideas even mucus stains disappear
are you still here?

no

so

saturated with *****, don't watch the news
feel it
and the sun is extinguished
and your throat peeling, yelling and stripped
and you're not really present
for any of it.

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.

I hate pottering around inside my mind
With no reason or rhyme, like I'm retired-
Poking through cobwebbed corners,
Pulling at age-old tablecloths, considering
A garden party for me and my little lost smile
There in the half-wild,
With the sun like messy oil I'll have to wash
Out of my hair and clothing when I'm done.

I hate playing docile card games alone,
Laying out plans like pictures I'll never colour in-
My doughy brain pokes stimulus off the shelf  
And traps itself in kindergarten daydreams;
I fingerpaint endlessly,
Defining the world through crayon senses,
Crushing, mushing cookies and shaking
Clumsy maraca beats.

If only I could lie down in soft rustic flesh
Snatching handfuls of it to conceal my skin
Finally, finally filling myself in
Buried alive for good
And be expelled, again, into blazing harshness
Choking on the earth that forms my body
Crying, crying for hope and fresh presence
Coming to life for good.

are my lips too thin
so the words cannot flounce
or somersault with flair
they break their pretty necks  
land with a painful yell  
and flounder in your grimace  
helpless

are my teeth too crooked
like a metal fence deformed
the sentences tear and topple off
flattened children in the muck    
mangled by dogs
their sad filthy hands pinch your ears  
hopeless

if i dressed it all up
like a call-girl, ruby lipstick,
fishnet stockings on my thoughts
and i danced out the poetry
on your lap, in the dark,
would you be fine with me
being in love with you?

i don't know

You teach life to mimic art,

Even as you're dying.

Dark-

Yet listen to my heart:

"Now that's a craft worth trying."

You said I have you
So let me roll your cigarettes clumsily
Over the yellow vase I got from a stranger
Who was heading to the ODEON drunk
And we'll see if I still have you
If I still have you
I'll stroke your veins for an hour in a field
'Cause I love touching arms
If I still have you
We'll fall asleep on trains and wake
At one a.m. in the suburbs
I don't care about finishing poems
I'll buy the best edibles
That my loose change allows me
We'll listen to metal for the rest of our lives.

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 endeavour to burst
my glum queasy organs
by binging on the sun;
like a fattened sow
that wobbles to slop
against the mist of *****

i'll **** the lemon hard
mouth spasming with beams  
till the rinds soak up my gums
where the nihilism clots
like plaque around a tooth  
fouling up my lunch

maybe i'll explode
across a hopscotch grid
they can twist my guts for rope  
and the sticky sun will mop me up
sour blood to goddess rust
now that's what hope feels like,
i'm sure.

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.

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.

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

two things I will never feature in.

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 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

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.

all of this
the world like a piece of meat
humor hatred saturday jogs
leaking balanced unbalancing

all of this
fleshy tender company
herbs conflict flooded staircases
dribbling sun on bus journeys  

kisses on benches
playful slaps pushes shoves
hugs

and us just sat here
tapping out words
listening to muffled guitars
the hum of the pipes
the flicking of pages

and us just sat here
opening curtains
remembering red hair
snippets of conversation

and us just sat here
the world on a plate
steaming bleeding sizzling
a slab of death of love of something

and us just sat here
nauseated and longing
the flies will come soon
they aren’t vegetarian.

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.

Just when I think I've finished fading,
Something makes me leave even more.

October is chapped lips on burned coffee
Ashes on ashes as fingers entwine-
Ah, October, a familiar tightening of chest
A blue siren sparked by paranoid fire
A dream, a whirlwind
Ending and beginning in horror so thick
You forget life offers cherry blossoms, too.
Bring me a ***, you say,
Your lungs have never tasted as black
And the lack of light ignites the desire
To fill your getaway backpack with flame.
People oblige in October but this scares you too-
Smiles are lullabies for the apathetic and dying
You'd rather be alone.
October is songs by the Smiths and stolen jumpers
Fading scabs under fingertips
Lost compositions and badly held chords.
In short, October is ******* terrifying
And you're so used to it that it almost feels
Like home.

it's been fun, still
there will always be the past
maybe i can crawl inside it
like those muddled in the freezing wood
slit open a horse carcass to survive
late at night maybe i'll lie there
tasting the drip of equine blood
listening to you laugh
it's as sweet a future as any
we might have shared, at least
there is no longer anything
you could do to stop
the way i love you matting my hair
and i'll reek of entrails forever

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.

Little miracles are fireflies;
When I catch one, I snap it
To sizzling gloop on my palm

So your god could patch my blisters
With golden thread, instead of the raw
Scraped rubber I spin on

Or tug his dandelion angels from the grave
To levitate me, regal, never to walk another step
Still, I'd deny him.

Little miracles are broken glass;
When the sun drizzles, they could be
Tiny flesh-encrusted jewels

But your god could heal my eyesight
Enhance my Eden to iridescence,
Blooming softly, gleaming,

Or clasp my skull like china forever
Precious, careful as the ****** mother with my brain
I swear I'd deny him.

In a fit of passion, push
Blazing rafts down from heaven
Euphoric streams through my window

Replace my dropped smiles
Like old, shameful sweet wrappers
With hosts of lovers, heather, art,

And me, still scrawling
'Return to sender'

Little miracles are burbling infants
Superseded by the howl of war
They do not revive fossils or friends

Or pelt Australian treetops with fluorocarbon
They are glitter in the carpet
A barbeque for nirvana

A burden
You must deny, deny, deny
(You have my word that so will I).

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