skin wide open and splayed in breadth and blood -
one never thought our skin could be so bright and
that blood would be so red, bone so white.

tears no longer nothing but heavy weights under the eyes -
their cheeks droop under it and bruise ugly and colourful.
the light's reflections are jealous. the rainbow dissolved.

no words to describe them except for what they are.
flesh and guts are human and animal and earth.
that's the grand scheme of every thing.

a drop in the ground and the snow parts like the sea -
is this a shift in colour or is it the sun behind the horizon?
god when you need him often shakes his head no.

two years after the fact,
i realised i had fallen in love.
and that was two years too late,
as i struggled to process what 'love' was.
i confused it with envy, anger, jealousy,
and by the time i figured out it shouldn't be,
i let it consume me, until it had become nothing
but a strangled, choked, ****** sob.
it became me; something ugly.
not like you, nothing like you - don't come any closer.
let me lock it away and let it wither,
for i can't bring myself to smash it to bits.

but instead, i think it's growing larger.
god - i just can't let it starve.

i swear there's ice in my veins
but the blood is coming out thin
and red. definitely red. a rose-red.

doesn't smell like a rose.

i've never felt colder than now;
now, with the hottest red blood
running down my skin.

it's red and hot like nothing else;
fire doesn't compare to the shivering comfort
and horror of blood on mortal flesh.

i'm aching with years worth of words
stowed away
i haven't been honest in a long time
don't know if i ever will be again

in poetic terms, it feels like;
a violent summer day coming to a close
along the line of the horizon, where the sun
crashes through the floor and everything
is colours, and everything hurts.
it is as beautiful as it is painful,
and it swallows the soul whole.

in less poetic terms,
it sounds much less appealing.

here is the first thing;
i fell in love with a woman when i didn't know what i was.
i hated her before i loved her - everything about her an evasive blur,
and i caught her briefly enough to discover
that i wanted to learn every line of her body -
the taste of her cupid's bow -
briefly enough for her to have vanished.

here is the second;
i am in the writing mood with nothing to write about
but the overwhelming weight of diaspora.
i am in the writing mood and i fear, reader,
i can't write a single word.
how to paint a picture that hasn't been painted before:
i don't know.

there is perhaps a third;
words flow out of my fingers. if they were to flow out of my mouth,
then i would bite them short and out.
god, who wants to hear that?

years long and years gone
i have cultivated           the
perfect amount of        will
to stay empty and         un-
fulfilled.