"The Queen's upside down"
you bemuse
I smirk at at eye-less face
hung up, lips to the sky, hung
from a picture frame on your bedroom wall

Why do they all have multicoloured hair?
I don't.
Mine's red.
Fiery, jealous, and fairly insecure.

Friday morning blues
How is it possible to feel sad
on the happiest day of the week?
Saturday morning is where I want to be though
grimey and exhausted in your bed.  

I sit outside because the empty skies make me closer to you

Tenement cattlements
children trapped like rabbits
raised for the ***.

We met awkwardly on the stairs
his apartment one flight up
door open, tv on
a world left firmly behind
Brooke, never one for only decoration
stood calmly, eyes fixed coldly
"he was hotter in the photo"
well loved hands, ones I'd known
passed over the reason for my revisit
well worn book
reopened my mind then to Kerouac's mind
and now to mine, frozen,
my planned wit, biting, left outside.

The ******* D train
leads straight to all of my desires
and all of my pain
both ways.
Manhattan-bound;
to mundanity and work.
and Coney Island-bound
(hurricane turned tropical storm
ripped out everything inside and made it raw)
to you.
The ******* D train
I ride you to the point of heart attack.

Route 278 to East
retail road street sign
How much further is there to go
than Shore Road
East is home
Both, all before "that ***** with the flame"
and across the pond
behind those white cliffs
if home is where the heart is,
do I have two hearts?
Or a heart divided?

I miss house parties
And the sound of my name
Called out into the street by my friends
Dark bedrooms and crowded landings
I miss being drunk
Too drunk to walk
But dancing anyway
I miss the smell of Saturday night
Of smoke and beer and people
And laughter and anger
And tears and hugs
But most of all I miss you
And the way you held my hand
Down that path by the river
When we were too scared to breathe
And the bench in the park
The one we always choose
Under the tree and the smooth English skies

That weekend they said
"on the East Coast,
Nemo finds you"
The snow brought standstill
to NJ
delivered her 12 inches
she gave us both a synopsis
like ****, gone wrong
But before she wrought self destruction
I was given you
to wake me up
if lying there with you would send me to hell
then take me to hell
via "please take me elsewhere"
and upstate,
to your uncle's infatuated dog.

A master of disguises
And a crippler of fear
you come in many sizes
and I will always keep you near

She was like a force of nature
Manipulative, dangerous and beautiful.
Without even looking at you
she could make you feel insignificant
She made you feel pathetic
But when she looked at you it was worse,
those cold, bitter eyes fixed on yours
and she saw so deeply into your mind
that your security leeched
out of your fingertips
like spilt milk.
Those soft, harsh lips would twitch,
and her eyes would mock you.
She oozed feline contemptuousness.
But you were hooked,
from the word go, you needed her.
She was your ******
And without even knowing it you were hers.
There was something delicious about her
something refreshingly suffocating,
like a rib tightening power-cut shower.  
She lovingly despised you,
couldn’t bear the beautiful sight of you,
and pinched the backs of your arms with violent affection.
When the text came through my world jolted,
something shifted as the realisation
of a different existence slotted into place.
In only a few digitally transported words
of no deliberation,
the person I required most had stopped my heart.

The wind
makes gentle movement,
noise,
Through the grass,
Round our ears
In the world outside our world.

We filter it
through the gaps,
Like the sunlight,
Dappled,
Through the leaves,
Over our world inside their world.

You think
Out loud to me,
things
too big to know,
beyond our time,
About the world outside our world.

You say
How in our life we travel
miles
Of other men,
And play their games,
In the world outside our world.

And you want,
To travel the miles of
Another man
And find him
In yourself.
And see the world, with me, still inside our world.

Death takes our deposits in installments
whatever you can afford
more that you can afford
$14 for cigarettes
death chuckles, stupid girl
She'll regret that in the morning
Hangovers, hesitant and polite
will lose patience
after fast food lunch
come ripping through and ruin you.
But you bought it,
just like those installments to death.

Packs of men
like hyenas
scavenging the bones
of a long lost cause
poor beautiful girls
hounded by the eyes and tongues
of men, for it's women on their minds.

It's a Saturday night in the snow
on a roof in Long Island
Smoke, seeping from my mouth
mists like curling fingers
Everything means nothing,
because the only thing I know,
is the potential for poison
in my mind
realization like a sharp cut,
a clean white paper cut
chokes me, and reassures me.
I will never die,
immortalized by my mother's love
The only thing that could **** me
is myself, angry self-destruction.
I am more dangerous than Bed-Stuy at 3am
or an empty subway car
My father knows
but my mother worries
unimportant consequences of boredom fuelled weekends.
I'm no danger to myself when her broken heart haunts my dreams.

Standing at the subway  and I'm late for a date
a first date
and Tiger Blood comes on shuffle
I'm transported to a summer afternoon
after school in Tommy's **** car
(now dead)
and Tiger Blood is on the radio
Sun is streaming through
and the boys are smoking
and it is perfect.
But maybe
the song puts this memory in my eyes
maybe it was raining
why else would we be getting a lift..
And is the smoke disgusting?
I don't think I even liked the song that much when I first heard it.

Tribal paint flickers
as illumination passes by
packed platforms of private souls
spilling into peripheral vision
Saturday nights
create fresh perspective
on unconscious thoughts
An unpulled can
of tired, bow-tied Spaniards
and white-clad partygoers
Tinney earphones
thrusting Brooklyn's finest
99 Problems aren't on my mind
but in my (un)willing ears
And I saw you on the street
42nd I'd say
I was filling my lungs
with the poison,
beautiful,
you showed me
You walked past me
just another stranger
you in 10 years time
They say everyone has a doppelganger in NYC
I haven't seen mine
but she's seen me
and Brooke saw her too,
rolled up Levis and a frown
you looked as beautiful as you always did
but clean of everything
you'd ever touched
or is yet to touch you
because nicky clouds
my thoughts lift me higher
I wanted to tell you that
I pray now
But I let you walk by
and disappear
leaving me with myself
coffee spilt from matches
got twisted and wouldn't light
I'm one handed,
crowded city but you're not here.

The light from the tv
Flickers on the wall
you ignore me
You have nothing
(to say to me)
But plenty to take
And you hate me
But can’t get enough
As you pinch me
Wrapping your arms around my ribcage
I am everything
In this moment
But I am nothing
To you.

Out of the wormhole
of underbelly Brooklyn
into the blue 16:52
Thrown into the rush hour
of 4th and 9th
public school break up
and tired office cleaners
end of the day R train
weary, wary eye-avoiders
lost tourists
out of place foreigners
totally at home.

Thunder won't move me
I'm a gunner's daughter
but these winds show me how far I've blown from home

I'm restless
and full of regret
in the way that only a Sunday night allows

Like an eagle
You ride the breeze
A summer warrior
You bring sunshine
And while through winter
You may hide
I wear you on my side
So as never to forget
That you are always there
Waiting around the corner
And that hope
Should never die.

The world starts to make sense
with her hand in yours
you love her
but you are not her mother
and with her tiny steps
you create a woman
both in yourself
and soon in her
She is your entire reality
in this moment
for this is life
one heartbeat at a time

The best way to describe my kids
is
if there's an electric keyboard
at the bottom of the basement stairs
there's a 100% chance it was thrown from the top.

They stand in a bubble,
And everyone sees through,
But nobody sees in.
Their eyes only on each other,
See nothing.
They whisper,
things to make each other smile,
to make him sigh,
to make her blush.
Fingers teasing,
About each other’s wrists,
Grip each other’s hearts.
Sight; glazes, focuses,
In each others eyes,
Fusing in their minds,
Shivers down their spines.
Butterflies,
Flutter, sometimes flicker,
Often splutter.
Tease each others smile.
Skin; brushing, touching,
Straying, learning,
Each others faces, bodies, minds, lips.
Kiss.

BULLYING

I was sad
and he was mad
he did not care about me
so what do I do now?

He says I look like garbage
and I always wonder
"What do I have to do
on this earth?"

School is not cool
because of what he does to me

Now when will we be happy,
he never stops bullying me.
I want to be friends
but we don't have a chance.

We will never have a friendship
because he does not care about me.

We are World War Three
A sinking ship, is me
you are the captain
of the ship that made me sink.

He is my nightmare
where did my dreams go?
My friends have disappeared,
I'm in a little box.

I know what to do now,
I have some friends to help me through,
the BULLY will be STOPPED at once,
I will tell him what I feel.

I want to be FRIENDS not ENEMIES.

There is something inexplicable delicious
about having your cigarette lit by a man
Crushed in the doorway
next to the Chinese restaurant
getting out of the wind
your hands around his hands
protecting the flare of a match
in a way you've been doing this all night
across a table
over stir-fried udon and saki
and British accents (yours real, his not)
something about the moment your face flicks back
as the smoke seeps into your mouth
and your eyes meet his eyes
and it's not until later
just after your lips are on his lips
and the world stops moving outside
that you realise you knew it would be like this
from the moment that flame burst open
behind two sets of hands.

White numbers descending
cold, black squares getting warmer
a cruel game of hide and seek
you hide, I find
something inside
some part of me I thought I'd left behind.

I'll sit on trains,
home is behind me;
home is in front.
The place I sleep on weeknights
with working mornings looming
is the place I only survive.
But at weekends
I live for you,
I breathe with you,
and when I sleep
I dream with you
because home is with you
in those moments at least.
My own bed,
twice as big as yours,
the thought a luxury
on a 12am R train.
or cold N to R transfer platform,
but too much room is bad for the soul.
I'd rather have
the Monday morning bruises
and bed spring sized aches.

What’s the name of your game?
I think I want to play,
Against my own rules though.
Not yours.

How long until I win?
Your victories get annoying,
When I’m still stuck in last.
Behind you.

Why is this your idea of fun?
I don’t like this anymore,
I want out of the laughs.
On me.

When will you leave me alone?
This joke runs on too long,
Winning the race of sense.
Past me.