The bricks and mortar are not pretty.
Semi-modern, terraced, magnolia painted –
each street lined with nosy neighbours
among copy-and-paste suburbia.

SUVs and sensible
hatchbacks sleep in the driveways.
There's a bus stop nearby,
but the buses only run Monday

to Friday. The sea is so close
but hidden
by train tracks, and an ice cream van
calls every Thursday.

The wardrobes are empty, skirting
boards cleaned.
I sob into the sink,
clutching the porcelain rim to my ribs,

pressing my hands to my cheeks.
I have no home to go home to,
just a flat with no gas,
making promises of new beginnings.

Offering bags of pretty things
to fill up my life with.
On the last night, we climbed
up the obelisk

to watch the starry city lights
sparkle across the bay.
The smokestacks stretch
as if it were morning. I want to kiss

this year goodbye,
but keep holding on
‘til each finger loosens
and slip into a new way to live my days.

How am I expected to not imagine you,
sleeves to the elbows, tensed hand
on a gear stick—
after a hair cut, batting your lashes,
bashful, slanted smile creeping
over your face? How could you?
When my chest contains this balloon
that is constantly inflating
at every gentle wind chime
mention of your name,
elated, I can't keep a calendar.
If I did! I would just be ticking off the days
until you were here again.
I can't begin to wonder what would happen if you'd found another girl,
if someone else realised what a catch you are,
if another heart was swelling every time you walked into a room,
or was silenced just by the sight of you.
Come back to me and hold me like you never meant to go,
I want to feel tiny and yet still invincible.

"I've noticed you cry a lot."
Yeah, that's me. On the wardrobe
door floating on the Atlantic. Except
nobody's noticed the ship's sunk.
I think they're reclining on lidos,
like the water is warm for them.

A tsunami rushing up side streets—
life flows on, collecting things.
Stops for no one and if you fall
you're dragged along until
you find your feet.
I'm drowning here, nobody else
has noticed the swell.

I've pressed paused on a stopwatch,
trying to grasp at a flimsy reality.
They're still all doing the motions,
I'm stuck still refusing to speak.
My friends are strangers in the street,
they're all calm in the madness.
Maybe the chaos is all in my head,
time carries on for everyone but me.

Love is a word flung round
so easily. I've strung myself
out on boys I loved
but knew too well,
and aside from being unobtainable
before midnight on Saturdays
were unsustainable contrasts
to a person like me.

I don't love you.
I never loved you. I barely like you.
I love the smell of you, the feel of you,
waking up beside you and cracking
jokes with you. I weep for that smile,
the way you can't speak in public,
pick the label off your beer
and listen in on conversations
because you can't make your own.
My mother says you sound like
you're boring at parties.

I say no.
It makes me feel special that you
have things to say to me.
In fact, until I heard you speak
I never thought much of you.
I think it's why they say you don't think much of me these days,
only I heard those silly things that you told me.

Don't tell me you believe
that vitamin C in an IV
will cure anything until you've been
crying by a dead child's
side and it's made you decide
at nine years old
that you will spend your life
finding a cure before any more
people you love lie hooked
up to food tubes
morphine titrating
venous dreams by their bedside.
Don't tell me those
expensive diets
or money making schemes mean
anything until you've
slept in hospital wards on floors
or sometimes an armchair
praying to a God you know
isn't there.
Don't tell me the answer is there to find,
that I just haven't tried—
I know I never let anyone die.

Love sick pup.
Couldn't you have just
****** me, why would you
lie entwined, head on mine
gently breathing,
breath sweet smelling
I forgot your
perfume smells so good.
I wanted so badly to kiss but it's
been so long since someone
touched me. So long since
anyone showed love to me,
I'm so tired of being lonely.
I forgot how you made me feel
like nothing was unfixable
and now you're gone again.

You called. We hadn't
spoken in weeks.
You needed drugs,
I had the contacts.

If I can't get love
from you, I may as well
get ******* and ****
someone new.

Now I'm trying to explain
to a Brazillian kid
what an 8 ball is
at 9pm on a Tuesday.

Drinking packet soup.
It's grey outside,
and I'm working the opening shift
in the morning, boring.