half asleep i carefully place
lemon slices on top of all the walls and sprinkle
tea tree oil around the door
i read it wards off
sadness
or cockroaches

my roommate complains of a familiar smell
and we discuss the insurgence of nostalgia
against the monarchy of the endless march of time

the way the what could have been gilts
the grass we walk through with guilt
towards happiness

i’m singing “off with the heads
of the things i can’t forget”
tiny feet in the passage whisper

“no one has crossed a meadow
& emerged with clean feet”

i remember cursing dew as a child
for dirtying my shoes as i walked to the car
and slowing me at the start
of races i was never going to win

out in the corridor i encounter the king who
doesn’t move as i raise my foot
only laughs and says

“a cockroach can survive a week
without its head
and a memory much longer”

for all the turbulence i sought
and sought
i was pretty good
i was so good

i battled through all the chaos
my kite was finally flying

but i snorted so much ritalin
my pupils are tar pits
and she calls me a hedonist but
i don't know what that means

i do know that
i fear neither death
nor consequence
you can treat me like your last meal
always at my most decadent

i remember i need to eat
then delete the thought
the only thing that sustains me is the rushing

by now
you should know that

it's all about me
we did the maths remember?

on those days we spent weaving
into each other on my mattress
perhaps we were writhing we just didn't know

we didn't have to care

if we let the summer fall into
the blue someone else would
haul it out
and resuscitate

the days we just let our phones ring
and wore the song to bed
beneath nothing
but our laughter thicker than my duvet

i guess i'm lucky i can be heartbroken
for a reason
i was heartbroken for so many reasons none
of which i can place or replace

on the wall where the sun tore our photos
into ribbons of shadow
we made the mistake of holding each other
too close
to the light

was i always warm or just aware that you were near me
i'm a rusted furnace with nothing but bones to burn
apparently
there's always a better fire burning in another town

i went to pour hot

water into my

mug but i was looking for something else

and i missed you

but i could have sworn you were right

here a second

ago i guess it’s one

of those

you had to be there moments

you should have been there moments

i thought you would be there moments

why weren’t you there?

moments haha like

going to a party to see a single

person who turns out

not to be single at all or

that time i reached for your

love and there was a hole

in my pocket


i can’t even remember where we fell

out in the first place

i dreamed about falling

off a chair in the church where

i heard you sing for

the first time and

it was the first time

i made you laugh

after a million years

i woke up

with a plum tree in my chest

with the touch of a finger you plucked a purple

planet off a branch

a world where we end up together

and bit out the part where we met

along with some other things

it hurt so much

i could have sworn

i heard you singing

me
there are things
i should burn for
but i won't
there are things
i should burn
but i don't
burn for you
i still burn for you
when i drink i still drink
but only in fiction
i try my best
to avoid looking at
pianists guitarists and singers they don't upset me
but i guess their art is too honest
for who i am
as it should be
i will never
understood anything done
for me out of love
me i
shouldn't be alive
last november i kicked
my friend in the face while
he tried to save my life
i'd forgotten about it and so
when he visited me
in hospital the next day
i asked about the bruise
above his eye
he looked at me real
funny and told
me he ran into a tree

i was nine and small

mouthed when i found

what would be my suicide note

in a bottle by the boulders

at kleinmond



at the time i believed

i was too smart for this world and so

paradoxically

i could not understand

how love could ****



children are foolish in some ways\and in some ways fortunate



sometimes what is not meant

to be will be

and what is meant

to be will not

but if everyone had just one

person i don’t think it could

be called love



although i don’t know what else

it could be



when i think about how

many people drown in my town

every summer

i wonder if maybe it was never intended

for us to learn to swim



i could make a similar

argument about love