You're a Tory conservative,
but you don't give two ***** about politics.
You don't know what you want.
Just not that. No, not that.

You're a petrol bomb,
you're a bottle full of explosives.
I run on you, usually,
I usually breathe you.

But *******. *******!
I read poetry and it's an anvil.
It's chest compressing, all consuming,
black, shapeless mass.

You're a racist. A homophobe.
I love you and I hate you,
you discriminate against love
you discriminate against me.

A straight white female,
and you hate me.
I think you might secretly love me,
Maybe you need me.
But I'll never know.

I held you as you slept
and I knew.

Was it three years?
Or just two? The nine month break
must be counted too.

God I love you,
it's an illness. God,
I really ******* love you.

But I knew,
I kissed you hard
but it just didn't taste the same.

It just didn't burn the same.
For once I feel like
friends would make more sense.

It's emptiness,
it's the first time hopeless
since I was sixteen.

Nineteen now
and I still love you,
but it just doesn't taste the same.

You say
you don't want to hurt me
but don't you realise this hurts
these lonely days
these hours in bed
you're never off my mind
for any moment -
that hurts,
a deep pain
the wondering if it'll ever change pain
the empty
I'm so worthless pain.
You don't love me
that's what hurts me.

I live for these days,
cold, wet and rainy,
overcast and hazy,
smoke-filled, getting wasted
in cars with the boys
ripped jeans soaked to the waist
in motor oil, cow **** and meal.

Flat tyres, rollies,
tar stained fingers, and buying
his girlfriend's morning after pill,
my best friend beside me
and it's not
impressive, it's not my degree,
it's not the big city
but it lives in me.
In the deepest part of me.

For saying you want to be with me
and then not calling.
For the last two years,
you've been my last thought
before I sleep,
and the first when I wake up -
yet never mine,
always elusive,
always the dark matter, half-there
schrodinger's boyfriend, you *******,
*******.
**** that I love you,
******* for ******* me
and taking a piece of me
every time you do.
**** feelings, **** your hands
on my heart, your breath
on the back of my neck.
******* for making me cry
on the bus
in public, down the phone
to my exasperated friends.
******* and **** that I love you.

Your hand in mine, twiddling
the silver around my right
ring finger. The point
of the heart faced out,
in hope you'd turn it
toward my wrist. Your mouth
brushes mine. You take it off,
examine the stamp - "925."
Slide it back on, the crown faced up,
the hands mirror ours,
clasped
around my heart. I wonder
if my father knew
what it would mean to me
when he passed it on.
I wonder if he knew
I'd fall for a boy
and this ring would twist my mind in folds,
you're a menace, a silversmith
you solder my mouth shut.

How could I question your word
you ask
but how could I not
every promise you made me
dissolved
sugar on the tongue —
It's cold, freezing
in the mornings, and yet
it's the red hot
image of you when I wake up
there 'til I sleep
and in my dreams. You
haunt me, and everyone
knows I'm in love,
so in love with you.