i felt like slicing you open, razor thin
and while you are asleep, to crawl inside of you
to take residence in the warmth of your flesh,
never to leave, never to separate
to merge with you as the wounds grow shut.

my own importance is swallowed like a pill,
by the resonance of his voice,
vocabulary ****** dry and replaced with a sheen of the need to
stay so unbearably quiet.

i always want to waltz in open spaces,
feel the air rushing past my arms as i spin,
but walking into a house so white and so cold,
i feel like i have ignored the welcome mat at the door.

it's his alleged presence,
or maybe it's just my own scepticism acquiring the patina of caution.
i walk with soft slow steps as if not to wake the dead in the garden,
cut short the swirl of my movements,
replace air vents in cartilage joints with rocks or plaster.
am i even supposed to feel like a person in my own right?

i wish someone would drop a pin for me to assess the quiet,
but there is a soft small current of people feeling at home,
or the quiet and the cautious mixing in like a cavity in a set of white teeth.

when i step back out into the sun,
my lungs grow fuller with oxygen, the leaves appear greener and the sky is more vibrant.
i do not feel his eyes on me as much; or the weight of being contained.
perhaps he just wanted me to go home.

dust pirouettes before the eyes of the sun,
sinking softly towards an ocean of its own.
heat’s forceful palms press against the sand,
disturbing the air’s careful disposition.
but he is not watching the rich colours melt overhead.
he pays no attention to the ripeness of the horizon.
he watches her,
a grace so light in her bones it feels strange to compare
to the weight sinking in his throat.

he tells her of the winds,
the way they re-carve a desert,
its dunes reborn.
he tells her of the aajej and the harmattan and how
it rolls and rolls,
producing showers so thick with sand
they were once mistaken for blood.

at night his fingers trace,
a vague map he once had memorised,
against the plains of her skin.
her veins cutting through her wrists like rivers,
each blemish a town unvisited,
and the hollow between her collarbones,
an oasis still unnamed.

my hair surrounds me like a halo,
fingers of keratin, adrift like seaweed.
softer in the pale bathwater,
silkier in its soapy film.

my phone is on the toilet seat.
i count how pearls of water fall from the shower head,
pipes and joints loose from wear.
after 20 i let the water pool over my cheeks,
settle over my eyelids,
bubbles surging to the surface impatiently.

submerged, i let the starvation in my lungs grow urgent,
a sleepy thrill i can play with to pass the time,
as i wait for my phone to never ring.

we used to lie together in my room watching
my walls become immersed with citrus,
and how remnants of day
would soak into the earth and the walls and the houses.
i would love to watch the watered down grapefruit
undulate in the horizon amongst milky clouds.

you are newly adrift; pace has taken a liking to you.
you dance from place to place as if being chased,
but i am no different than before.
i feel like i could lie on my bed watching the sun droop
for hours.

the heat effuses from your skin and soaks into mine,
breaths soft as they whisper into open air,
a murmur, a shift of the lips, lashes quivering.
the crinkle that pulls in between your brows as if,
something is concerning you in dream-state.
but not bad enough, that it can touch,
the softness that permeates your form,
the peace that sinks in your limbs.
each finger curled, i become distracted.
until you turn over and we bump hips.
another hum of losing concern leaves your mouth as you shift into me
i want to disappear with you there,
feel the weightlessness of dreams,
but the bed is warm and so are you,
i think that could compare.