We can’t find each other– it’s
real dark outside,
cool, but not cold.

We will probably regret this by morning, nothing
left but the breath I’m losing. Forget
school; I don’t think I’ll make it home. And when

We have to stop for a breath, her motives
lurk in the air like the cigarette smoke she longs for. It’s 3AM,
late even for us. But

We don’t say much, and look for something to
strike her match with. Now she’s wondering what
“straight” even means as

We share my brother’s hoodie, and
sing anything we can remember. The
sin – or the smoke – dances in the air, but

We can’t tell the difference. This
thin hoodie somehow covers both of us, and I smell
gin or maybe whiskey on her breath.

We have never talked boundaries,
jazz, or those stars engraved on her wrist. I touch one. “Last
June,” she tells me, answering a question I never asked.

We sit for a while. My hand still covers the mark, and she says, “It wasn’t to
die,” but I stay silent, afraid to show her my own faded scars.

It is kinder
The way you're doing it.
A little now and again.
Hurting me and letting me feel on my own.
From heartache to heartache,
learning every time.
You're leaving me for sure.
There can't be doubt.
Even after I let you go,
finally crying my pain to the woods,
You return.
Having you back makes me sad.
You're to be lost in the end.
But I like the way you're leaving me.
The way you're  doing it.
Kinder to go a piece at a time.

Don't expect to find
Happiness
In an area
Where infinity's confined

daddy screams and shouts, eyes burning with rage
mummy cries tears bitter with sage
brother is scared, eyes wide as moons
we all agree daddy has gone through menopause too soon

on our faces, we brush aside this sudden burst
"it's just nothing," we say, "he knows family comes first."
but the sight of him consumed is etched in the air
trapping the three of us in trauma's snare --

his eyes were livid, veins bulged from his neck
pulsing with the viscosity of a lava lake
he burned like blue fire, the kind that burns too hot
destroying everything around it, leaving death-clogged smog

i don't know why daddy is so angry today
till then, in our room, mummy brother and i will stay
i have never seen daddy so angered and flared
so distant with fury, so paralysingly mad

i fear for this family, i never have before this
this fear scares me, so i will make a list
i hope it will serve to place some of my fears
into linear thoughts, before it rains tears

first, daddy has always been holy and kind,
on his chest a cross, you would always find
but as he grows older, with hair turning grey,
with valley-deep wrinkles and memories gone astray,

he seems to forget, that i am human too
with his words, he beats me, beats me black and blue
criticisms and 'bad bad bad' ring through the house
if only he saw, he is the wolf that prowls

second, daddy had been a family man
the kind that spends a fortune flying us over land
but lately, he's just been out of touch and sight
sins queuing outside the door, waiting to enter at night

he seems to forget when i was a child
the cards i gave him, the way i made him smile
but i remember, when his hair was still black
in our family, love and warmth was never in lack

time, stop. return my daddy back to me.
stop this affair, i beg you; don't let age run free.
don't run through your fingers in his hair like that.
don't paint his hair grey, don't make it fall away.

give me the daddy my mummy met, back.

you have to at least wonder sometimes,
"why anyone would love you"

Pink silky pillows of soft skin
Hidden in memories resting deep within
I can see beams of blue and maroon
Outlined by pale skin dancing with the moon
I can see gentle gestures from strawberry tongues
And i can hear whispers urging us to come
But these are now only memories
Kept in the dark slowly slipping away