Saint Jude says what's up
been in Boston all night
having coffee and tea, I bet
you're doing the same
in Tibet or wherever

They tried everything
on you: the secret arrests
burned Rumi books
poisoned coconut water
giraffes with broken faces

Loneliness is the door to the traps
but you know
who you are
I know too when I see you
on the coast

as still, as skinny as
one of my African statues
as lithe as a palm frond or a jellyfish
You were always going to get free
you were always going to get free

I watch the couple
walking together in the park
it's getting dark
and I wish you were here with me.
We could hold hands
and walk as they do,
me and you

but we are not free.
I wish I could share
the trees and the sun,
the sound of water as it runs,
with someone besides
all these strangers
surrounding me.
With someone I love.

A man asks me
'What are you doing all alone?"
My only answer
is a question,
"What am I doing?"

When I was five, I ran away.
I took my favourite teddy,
Three packets of raisins,
And a blanket.
I climbed the huge old sycamore tree,
In the middle of common,
And I stayed there until it got dark.

When I was seven,
I ran away.
We were in town,
I’d been left outside the bank.
So I simply walked away.
Maybe that was the start of it.
Walking. Not running.
Disappearing. Not fighting.

When I was ten,
I ran away for real.
I took my piggy bank,
My mother’s purse,
A change of socks,
And I left just as it got dark.

When I was fourteen,
I discovered there was a different way out,
How to leave the madhouse?
Join the inmates.

When I was fifteen,
I was sent to see a man with a beard,
He asked me questions, all of them meaningless,
But one.
Why had I jumped?
I smiled. I’d been dead for a while, you see.
“Because I thought I would fly.”

The floor was cold under my bare feet as I crept down the stairs, listening to the noises that the house was making. The kind of noises it made when it thought everyone was asleep – the hum of the refrigerator, occasional clunks, the creaks as the walls warmed up and cooled down. By all rights, I should have been asleep.
Outside, the night was the impenetrable black that you only ever see in the dead of night, in the middle of winter. My face looked ghostly and pale in the glass of the window as I turned the tap, water sluggishly filling my glass. It was a peculiar feeling – like being disconnected from everything around you. Freefalling.

“Bit late, even for you.” I jumped, when I shouldn’t have. I don’t think you ever slept. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Couldn’t stop thinking.”

“Ah.” Your shadow moved towards me across the room, and I watched your reflection in the frosty window.  “It’s cold.”

“I know.” This was how we worked, this shorthand. For a guy who never shut up, and a girl who never said anything, I suppose it wasn’t unusual.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m not the one who’s half-naked.”

You chuckled, and I turned to look at you. Sweatpants hugging your hips and nothing else.

“Are you allergic to shirts?” I felt compelled to ask.

“I sleep naked. This is dressed up.” You smirked.

My cheeks flushed, and I was so grateful that the dark hid it. Suddenly, I was conscious of my pyjamas. Which was ridiculous – there was nothing wrong with sleepy sheepy.

You were watching me, that slow smile messing with my head.

“What?” I snapped irritably, uncomfortable with the weight of your gaze. “What?”

“Nothing.” You said, shaking your head. “You just look nice” you reached out, caught a wave of my hair, “with your hair down.”

I tugged away, making an impatient noise, and you dropped your hand to my arm. I looked up at you, wild eyed, and you stared back. I didn’t pull away.

For the first time in your life, your eyes weren’t dancing around, constantly distracted. They were still. We were still. We were trapped in that second.

“Are you cold?” I asked, and a part of me congratulated myself. That sounded almost normal, nice one.

You smiled slowly, your pupils huge and diluted. I wanted to tell them to stop, they were swallowing the green and it wasn’t fair.

“Not anymore.”

You reached your spare arm up and cupped the side of my neck, I watched your eyes, and they watched your hand. You tangled your long, pianist’s fingers in my hair, and looked up, into my eyes.

“Can I kiss you?”

Before, when we were dancing and I was so scared that the music was my drug, that I’d come around and know it had been a mistake, I had said no.

But there is nothing hypnotic about standing in a dark kitchen, skin crawling with the memory of shivers and when the soundtrack is the humming of the fridge.

“Yes.”

Your head dipped slowly towards mine, and I counted every second.

One.

I was falling.

Two.

Your breath touched my face, my eyes were closed.

Three.

Maybe you were falling too.

Four.

Your lips brushed mine, a whisper of a kiss, and then deepened. And suddenly we weren’t two, beautiful, broken teenagers with no way out and who were so, so tired. Suddenly, we were a girl in sheep pyjamas and a boy with smiling eyes. Suddenly, we were inconsequential to the grand scheme of things. Suddenly, we were all that mattered.

And when you pulled away, and my eyes opened reluctantly, I saw that you weren’t going to disappear. There was no pounding bass to hide behind and my hair was brushing my the bottom of my shoulder blades.

“Okay?” You said, and I watched the way your eyes sparked, my mind was humming.

“Okay.” I said, and I knew that, for the first time in a while, there would be no nightmares tonight.

Reality obliterates.
An overdose of anything is bad.

I saw you standing by the gate of my castle one night.

It’s a fight, baby, a fight.
I’d rather not bring this up now, now or ever.

Poised to evolve, to create and be,
Ah, this mystery. It is not for me.

Twenty nine, you said. I wish.
Now your cue: ‘It was only a kiss – how did it end up like this.’

Poles split apart. Lives break.
Dices’ fate?
Never too late
For you and I to make
it.

Priorities, priorities. We all must have some.
Or that’s what I was told.
By someone old
and presumably wiser than I.

I don’t think I understand yours.
To be so clear now, so transparent, may not bode well for me.

Anyhow, the problem persists. I do not know.
I can only make sense of what you show.

Like a teacher, a guide, a mentor might.
But ah. What if the disciple lacks the insight?

Inside me. Inside you. Inside something beautiful.
Flew away, flew away: that one and her nuances.
And left us with this wonderful,
Incorrigible mess of things.

Like twisting beads into a big ball of yarn.
Or letting the dog mangle it up with salivating earnestness.

The beads, they make all the difference.
And you are my beads.
Of all shapes (mostly round),
Of all sizes (mostly large),
Of all colours (mostly nothing – mostly them all.)

And you know what? I like colours.

Colour me unrecognizable

(By anyone but you.)
There was no other
I could give myself to.

I cant ascertain
Whether it’s me I lost, or gained.
You I made proud, or shamed.
Respect lost, or love regained.

This would be easier in nonsense verse.
Flibbertigibbet very nicely puts me in retrospect.

What am I doing?
I can’t phrase poetically,
Much less understand what I say.

It may be for you to know.
For you only, for you forever.

Hide this.

and into the night we ran, like animals
the lights on our ankles bounding into the half-light
excitement fizzled and cracked in our hair
we ran faster and faster and faster
I saw the edge come into view
in a split second it was right under my feet
I dropped towards the ground
my legs burning into a tightened coil
then shot into the air like a firework, spiralling
we arced our backs towards the moon
then, in that moment,
nothing,
silence
we hung in the air
I could see the ocean miles below
it was crystal clear
and blue and purple and green
so incredibly massive

I met a girl, one day or night
who taught me how to live
An empty truth, you may observe
I hope you can forgive

She spoke of something more to me,
or so she did perceive
As demons sneer at angel's wings
when tripping on their sleeves

"Where have you been tonight my dear,
I trust you will not lie?
Because lying is a bow my dear,
I trust you cannot tie?"

Lost. I had no argument.
No angle could I find.
No brilliant light bulbs brilliant light.
No swift turn of the mind.

But, amidst my overanxious thoughts,
one detail sharply stood.
Of all my prior misdirections,
this one had to be good.

"I've walked in halls of marbled stone
and well carved wooden walls.
I've talked of nations fighting wars,
and when that they might fall"

"I've conversed the winter weather wild,
heard what spring may bring.
I've bolstered men who'd have fallen down,
sang with women who cannot sing".

"And now you nag nag nag at me,
when all I want is sleep!
Why can't you leave me well alone,
when towards my dreams I creep?"

"Oh! Please do forgive me,
My most almighty Tsar.
But must One sleep with One's head,
still resting on the bar?"