I'm learning to lay awake
with myself,
Peaceful and warm I
can be with me,
Caring for myself like I do my chilli plant,
Testing my own leaves for lack of nutrition,
Or love,
Cheap, clean sheets beneath my hands and calves
Light the wick.
Colin Meloy's liquid voice falls
like hail,
Excitable under my skin.
So as I watch the light move across white ceilings I can clear
and muse
and breathe.

It could be the comprehensive blow
of short sharp needles to my torso,
or the merciless ache
of looking at a sunflower with one eye shut,
or the unrelenting urgency to walk
the map of another.
but,
there are spaces,
where leaves use to be,
and now afternoon air moves between,
and there are dusty birds,
who flutter to the sound of the rain.

I want to prepare food for you,
Chopping leeks and secretly dropping coriander into the pan,
I know you say you don't like it but you never notice and it really adds something,
The radio sings and fills the spaces between the smoke and steam and my thoughts,
I shout you alright, babe?,
You shout what?,
I walk over to the sofa holding a beer you chose and move towards you,
Grow towards you, lean over and press my cheek hard into your neck creases,
Your pulse thrumming through me like a train,
I close my eyes tight and think of all the times I was desperately alone,
In dark rooms in my mind,
Shall we cycle our bikes to the river tomorrow? you whisper into me,
Your breath warm and sweet,
I add salt to the dinner and you pull out a map and our days and nights are woven together by you looking at me looking at you.

These eyes of yours,
Coaxing me into warmth.
You gather around me,
Like moss on the bark of an old oak.
Palms pressed against the trunk of me,
You seal the gaps in my fractured heart.

In England brown birds make dusty circles on overcast days,
The ground blankets itself in moss and cappuccino leaves.
So when the sharp lemony sun fills the breeze with warmth,
And white cotton clouds punctuate the sky and my eyelids,
It feels like home

Swaying,
Heat pressing into my skin,
The same winged creature circling my face and then landing on the very tip of my nose,
Air thick like a milkshake.
When the rain comes,
Landing with a thud,
Like a bag of sand dropping from the roof of a house,
The animals can breathe,
I can breathe,
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh,
Even the crickets let out a sigh,
Pounding like a drum,
Pounding like the same dream every ******* night,
The capybaras and wooly monkeys with their hunched shoulders and squinting eyes,
Let the branches and leaves heave around them,
Verdant,
And flashing,
A globe of bubblegum,
The rain always comes.

I can hear the sea bed,
I sometimes think I can hear whales and eels,
And pain escaping my body,
I feel so much all the time,
I sometimes think you feel very little and watching you succeed makes me feel worse and isn't that awful?
Eels are covered with a slimy mucus  that allows them to slither around without getting scratched,
I keep dropping myself into water,
For a second of relief,
Healing isn't linear,
And did you know eels can swim backwards and forwards.

It's the smells,
The woody, earthy laden lift in the air.
A scent guilded in memories of twigs breaking under feet,
As I walk to the One Stop with my dad,
Wet, amber leaves stuck to his holey shoes,
The air is damp and unfaded, but lightly coated in the smoke from his roll up.

The smell,
More floral now,
Warm, heavy rain drip dropping onto vast leaves in Mexico,
The floor drier and peppery compared to it's English cousin,
My eyes locked onto the stars through pointed dancing clouds,
As if the sky has been dipped in glitter and laid out to dry in the jungle.

And now its moss,
Moss and pine and your hair.
It's both of us gazing through the foliage to catch the eye of a bird,
Our fingers brushing and clinging,
I can feel my mouth lift,
As you pull me towards your nose,
And whisper 'I love us.',
We walk,
Warm in one another's stories,
With wet socks,
And pink cheeks,
We inhabit the trees.

I'll carve myself out of the bones of a former me,
Shave off the soft, spongy gut making my calls,
Leave a strong oak cask,
A barrel of good decisions,
Or lessons at least.
The new me, rough and cut by experience!
The sky can shape my eyes,
And the sea my heart,
Weathered like a cliff but tough like an avocado,
I'll resemble myself like a sister,
Just more me.

Blankets of verdant emerald over fallen limbs,
Crooken arms,
Enclosing up and over and under,
Walk, sting, stop, puddle,
Ankle deep in laughter and brown, murky water,
Joy spread across our faces,
Mud smeared up our arms, legs, hands and hats,
Indestructible powerhouses with totally vulnerable feet,
Like ducks and foxes and rabbits.
The spongy bark or mighty trees fills me with hope,
That my wounds will heal.

Forgotten memories swill into happy minutes,
White, red, white, red, red,
Wine is good for your heart,
Though it drives the blood right to the walls of my mind,
Leaves me on stilts.
Wine and a bath,
Like you ran me once,
Smiling through your teeth.
Wine is fine.
Spicy. Oak on the nose.
The ache in my jaw deep now, like a shot of adrenaline, on the cold street holding a phone to my ear as you speak emotionlessly: ‘I can't’
Swill it. Earthy and dark.
The ache so deep now the blood has made it to my teeth.
Tip the glass high. That last drip fills the space.
Another glass. Just one more.

I know you weren't the one because you didn't like my yellow coat,
The one Sacha told me made me look like a whale watcher,
When Sacha said that I felt tall and strong,
The coat made me feel prepared
And I wore it like a suit of armour,
Shield in hand, sword raised high. Ready!
The weather makes me feel like a bird,
Frenzied and beautiful,
Swaying in a tree,
Hot, damp and alive.
I'll always love my yellow coat,
To wear on handsome grey days,
Sharply defined in dimly lit doorways,
Like a honey eater in a stark, dead tree,
That's how I know you weren't for me.

The light,
That sits in rain drops as they creep across windows,
Has to be magic.
It's so intensely filled with gold,
Like jewels in ***** hands,
I won't hear another word about it,
Magic.
And when we're walking towards a steamy windowed pub and the rain hits my glasses and the light from the street light pours in and fills them with that magic,
I have to stop and kiss you and tell you that tonight feels like a book,
A picture book,
With hand painted illustrations and neat boarders,
And autumn isn't so bad.

Just a gang, a club, I guess,
Where subjects like war and cheese and mess,
Are passed around the room like a bottle of red.
A platonic marriage but sort of unsaid.
Walk in with a bottle, and a story and a sigh,
And leave with a plan and a slightly slurred 'goodbye!'

When you've cried so much you've that ache in your teeth,
It's ears and cheers and arms to sit 'neath.
To laugh so hard and feel so full of us,
What a gang we are, worth the stupid bus.

We can be each other's heroes, isn't that ****** nice?
To be in love forever, in a messed up paradise.
Yeah we're a gang alright, and a party we can throw,
Just as soon as Christmas ends, or dr who, ya know.

I hate dreaming about her,
Her hands immediate and cold,
Peeling back my shirt,
I lay down with my arms over my face and say:
'you shouldn't be allowed,'
In the time between night and day,
The puddle blue sky towers over me,
Pokes me back into sleep,
Where she might be.
How dare she!
Kind and gentle, her voice lullabying me into ease,
My mouth rising with a smile at the edges only to remember and feel double crushed,
Pressed into the bed by her shoe,
And worse,
Sometimes reality plays out and I have to relive it,
Like having my arm broken twice to reset the bone,
Crunch crunch,
I feel violated because my brain is for me and she shouldn't be allowed into the soft parts without my permission.
I wake and start the day with the stone in my throat and swallow and swallow and it does go away.

I love to cook for you,
Steam billowing from pans and your arms lazily draped over me,
Lips honeyed with ***,
Your pockets jingle with trinkets and you stir the pan,
Grazing the sauce with your eyes and the spoon,
After,
You'll bury your head in my neck and tell me I'm brilliant and you want to lie down,
I want years of you, decades,
I could drink crates of you and only want more.
The girl with pockets filled with tissues and one hand on a book and the other on my foot,
You hold my heart like chicken soup,
Bringing it right to your nose and tasting every drop.

I should've loved a tree,
Strong, tall and fierce,
Roaring through me,
(But I had to love you.)

The tree and I could make a pact,
To lay together awake,
(But I had to lay with you.)

To love the sky would be a thrill,
Grey, blue, black, yellow, pink, red,
You were like a cloud,
(But I loved the clouds too.)

I tried to love a bottle,
To tip liquid on it till it swam,
Bitter sweet on my tongue,
(But you tasted better.)

Maybe I'll love the sea,
Cool and dark and swirling in mystery,
(And I'll love the waves forever.)

I can't read all the books,
or be all the people,
or live all the lives.
But I can feel every tone,
shade and hue.

Fill my lungs with mountains,
and grass and skies.
Watch my life branch out like
a moreton bay fig.
Here comes lonely
and blue,
and I'll feel every tone,
and shade and hue.

There's no way out of my head,
so I'll devour the rain,
beautiful and annihilating,
full and terminal.
Every tone,
shade and hue.

The wind is lifting me,
Like being plunged into the cool autumn sea,
The clouds are still a spectacle,
Whether black or pink or grey,
But the dwindling light,
And beige film,
Weigh on me,
And I'll yearn for heat spread thick across my back,
And blazing mornings filled with bird song,
But orange is a good colour,
For bodies pressed together,
And steaming drinks brought to noses,
And lips on cool, pink cheeks.

The leaves, the sea, the sky,
The grass, the birds, my eyes,
Blues swimming into yellows,
Kissing each other on the nose,
Booming into 1000 symphonies,
From birds beaks to cloudy peaks,
Wash my eyes in colour,
And peel back the ground to the core,
So I can see it's roots,
It's bones.

I love romance,
Soppy songs about broken hearts and longing and holding hands
Have always made me spin and swoon,
American films where lovers meet on a bridge and
They're so happy at the end they cry and so do I,
I love flowers
And poems
And benches with declarations,
I feel romantic about lots of things,
But mostly my friends,
Who hold me like the string of a kite when I flail wildly,
I sit in the raft of their safety and we take turns to row,
To be in love so deeply,
My friends smell so nice and have kind hands and open hearts,
I'm quite broken,
Or so it feels,
But those I feel romantic for quietly hold my pieces until I ask for them back,
The moon shines like a silver coin and its beauty makes me feel worse,
I feel romantic about the moon
and flint walls
and empty bodies of water
and my friends who whisper shhhhhhhhh as I fade into sleep,
Makes me believe I am loved and lovable.

If I can hold on,
Then I can drift away,
Over and away from the beige and the ache,
I can drift into hues of pale pink and cerrulean,
Every shade blended to my skin,
As the sky envelops me,
Wraps me up tight.

Bring on the greys,
The whisps of cloud that blur across the atmosphere,
And rhythmic rain on Sundays and dark days,

But give me
A  violet rose dome while I drift,
The sun scattering clear thick shadows which flash over my eyes while I spin,
Yes give me blues,
While I drift.

Falling back through time,
Like closing my eyes and leaning face first into a pool,
Gives me a jolt sometimes,
Takes a while to focus,
Clear the edges into fine lines,
But when I do,
It's me and my brothers and our flat basketball,
Laughing and shoving each other,
Before we were jaded,
A pastel version of ourselves,
Throwing water balloons from their bedroom window.

Now we're grown and darker shades,
I want us to smile and breathe like we did together then,
I want us to play basketball,
I want us to warm ourselves on the comfort of each other,
I want us all to live vehemently,
I want us all to live vehemently.

The gentle roll
Of unspoilt land
Goes on and on and on,
Endless shades of green
Pouring into one another
And then into my eyes.
Wide skies and cascading light,
Luminate bark and the scent of growth,
And change,
Or both.
I crave the sea,
To lap away my aches,
But I ache for you,
Each bone pulsing your name.

But I find stillness in the clouds,
A white cloth of calm,
A lullaby.

The warmth and earthy scent of the forest floor is gone and instead,
It's ashtrays and sore eye lids I don't
Know how to dislodge the small, grey stone in my throat sometimes
The stone chokes me I wish
I could peel back my skin like a spring onion,
And reveal and fresh new me,
As if the broken, beige bit never existed I love
The sound of washing machines going round and round,
And round and round and round and round I think
About the tree trunks and buttercups and melted ice creams and as the air warms like this I feel sick and
Foolish,
And I can't look at things through my eyes I want
You to be happy and I'll try
And be like a spring onion,
All shiny, and green and white.

The leaves on the tree outside my window get bigger by millimeters,
And the umami delight of marmite on crumpets is comforting and luscious,
One eye shut because the sun if filling it with heat and light,
This way I can still read my book in the sun,
These joys,
These small joys,
Which you have to take note of, you must,
Are endless;
Cold beer zapping my tongue like electricity, zing zing,
Dippy eggs with toast crunchy and eggs runny , salt flecked across the top,
Coconut hand-cream rubbed between each finger and thumb meticulously,
Music pouring through rooms into the flat and lilting in and out of earshot from outside, inside, next door and my radio,
Sparrows with their endless cheep cheeping,
Steam from strong black tea, gilded with rose, warming my hands nose and stomach,
The tiny hairs on raspberries, so soft and the juice so ****,
Plans to go no where, somewhere, the pub! A river! A farm! On a train! On a boat! On a bus!
Candles which pack the room full of floral, honeyed scents,
Crunchy apples,
Flaky pastry,
Warm bread,
The tsssssssttt when you open a can of Coke,
Lemons, just lemons,
The bbzzzz bbzzzz of my phone carrying I love yous, and for ***** sakes,
You have to take note of these joys, you must,
Because when I think about 16 women dead by lovers hands,
I feel I've hollow bones,
I need the beer, eggs, hand-cream, music, sparrows, lemons and bbzzzz, tea, bread, pastry and plans to keep me upright,
And I send thoughts of dippy eggs and lemons to those without.

June feels short and raw,
Like grass and orange squash and warm knees,
I'm squeezing fresh citrus over my open heart,
Letting everything in,
The breeze, the news, the change in skies,
Your eyes,
Letting it all in to flood my bones,
As I fall.

With water and air and light passing through your fingers,
You have stacked bricks,
Like butterfly wings,
Back to back,
Around me.
No entry! You shout to all the shadows,
Those that leave me spitting feathers and make my eyes dart,
I like the shadows that you cast,
Your body warm and soft and tracing me,
The shadows that line my garden,
As the ice cream sky breathes,
Bring me slowness,
Just as you do with your rising chest,
And make me better.

When I cycle without holding the handlebars on my bike,
I wonder if I look arrogant,
Like a bit of a *****,
But
In winter I don't care
because as I let go
and straighten my back and lift my arms and open my mouth and breathe in the sea
I feel like a butterfly or a comorant or a bumble bee lifting and gliding and riding winter up and up and up,
I feel like a tiny yellow light has been lit like a candle at the base of my spine and the soft warmth from it is thawing my body from my ribs to fingers.

Winter wants to hurt me,
At least it feels that way,
Put a bag over my head and expect me to smile,
My scarf is making my neck sweaty and itchy and I'm sick of it,
The ice is creeping deep and deeper into my head,
Whispering words I thought I'd buried.

In books set against snowy backdrops with whisky in pubs and cable knit jumpers and hands to mouths,
Winter is warm and bubbling with atmosphere,
And though I've seen glimpses and sipped on spicy *** and given myself red wine teeth and sore fingers from sitting outside and laughed until my belly ached,
Today it just feels cold
Colder than cold,
Cold and hollow,

Unless I'm riding my bike with no handlebars and looking at the sea.

Sometimes talking feels like walking steadily towards a moving train,
The power,
Chug, chug, chug,
Volume rising like the temperature behind my eyes,
Pacing, pacing, feet floating heavily below my knees,
Like carrying the weight of both of us on my back where you touched me once and I jumped,
Chug chug chug,
Words fall like bags of sand,
Dry and broken from my mouth,
Lit by the lights of the choo choo locomotive that will grind my bones firmly into the track,
Breathlessly I watch the train
Stop,
I step on rushing with the light and the hope and the words ready to spill from my mouth like viscous liquid,
Ready to pour into you,
I love you!
I gasp for air and swallow the liquid down like medicine,
Maybe next time.

Tall, jewelled trees,
Swim by like clouds,
Flashing as they catch the sun.
My skin warm and my head boardered in fuzz,
Blurring out the mechanical thoughts and leaving soft and tender memories of you,
To wash me clean of anguish,
But the distance,
Space and time,
Sometimes fills my vision,
And leaves my mouth dry.
Watching the moon wax and wane,
Signals the passing of time,
Though I'd never urge the clock,
I do watch shadows move,
And bend,
And inevitably,
The glow of you intensifies in my mind.

Hot spring light pours into each room of my flat,
Cool air fills all the spaces left,
The steam from my mint tea lifts into my nose and reminds me of all the mint teas I've sipped over time,
In vast, cold cafes of museums with my mum,
In damp festival fields sprinkled in orange light from ferris wheels and burger vans,
In shaded gardens over lunch, brunch, tea and breakfast,
And on fiercely cold nights with candles flickering off of every wall, tea held right to my nose making my cheeks tacky from the steam.
There's comfort in mint tea, like crocheted blankets and gravy and hot mash and staring at a body of water when everything feels ******,
I could draw a map of me using mint tea as a compass,
Crisp, and hot.

Sometimes your eyes have so much moving behind them,
I long to pull you into a field of buzzing wild flowers to listen to the grasses sing.

Sometimes I want to save you,
From the stones placed roughly on your chest.

But sometimes,
The answer is a baptism of hot bubbly water,
And silence,
Or noses pushed gently into sweaty necks,

Or best of all,
Vanillary skies arching over us like a tunnel of clouds and birds and blues and the sun is serene and bursting,
And our hands are lifting one another high, screaming from our lips,
'Isn't this great? I love you!'
As we walk together,
With ours eyes open,
And look up,
And listen to the grasses sing.