the heartbeat rumble
in your ears
is the signal
you’ve been waiting for
   a warning
that too much
has piled up
and your head
has gone all Kandinsky
   blood lights
blinking like sequins
in the crook of your vision
   tangle of duvet
half lolloped on the floor
   echo
of a neighbour’s conversation
a gloopy mumble
through the walls
   and you’re thinking
of skin the colour of wheat
un-lipsticked lips
   a song that hasn’t been written
but the words exist
longing for you to pluck them
like a novel from a shelf
in a second-hand shop
   a thunderclap
snaps you back
to the same room
the same face
looking back from the mirror
with its wet blueberry eyes
   and you say
you have a story
fashioned from mashed potato
and sticky tape
   all it needs is a listener
to kiss a whisper
to your neck
drip syllables
that glow as torches
tell you everything is fine
   your listener
as the shower rain
leaves a network of streets
jogging down your cheeks

I didn’t want to.
He’d just got in from work
and flung the keys
into the bowl
so the clatter rattled
into the kitchen
where I was taking out
the chocolate fingers
from the Sainsbury’s bag
and I still hadn’t shut
the fridge door
so my right arm
was going cold.

He came up behind me
and groaned
and I assumed it meant
he’d had a long day
except everybody’s day
is the same length
but he put his arms around
my chest
subtracted the bottle
of Gordon’s gin
from the bag
and said we’ll be drinking
some of that tonight
I could do with it.

Then it came.
He asked if I’d called.
I said no because
what am I supposed to say
it’s too far to drive
on a Friday night
and they’ve got roadworks
on that roundabout still
but he butted in
like a cough in a quiet room
and said fish
and chips for tea then
been a while.

Picked up the phone
offered it to me
as though a pig’s ear
to a Labrador
and I thought stuff it
as he shut the fridge
so I reluctantly poked
at the numbers
and heard the bloop
again and again
and said to my mother
how’s this evening.

Sorry yes sorry
what yeah OK
no better right I see
yeah my fault I know
that long right yeah
so half seven
yep OK half seven.

It’s just I don’t like
the idea of monitors
and plastic-y tubes
and doctors with PhD’s
spurting words
buried in a dictionary’s depths
but he put his hands
around my chest again
and we said nothing
for a moment or two
until he said
I’m going for a shower babe
alright.

the picture

sloshes into view

like a wave on a beach

you haven’t discovered yet

there’s a tree outside

whose leaves quiver

like green flames

and there are books

on the coffee table

worn at the middle

from finger-flicking

in a lake of boredom


you are clinging


onto a voice that radiates

out from the walls

but you don’t know

where it’s coming from

but like a note on the piano

or the branch of rain

that leaves a slippery avenue

on your windowpane

you want it to stay

so you can hear it again

the cool cadence

flooding the room

There’s a clumsiness
to the way I unbutton my shirt,
hoist it over my head
and let it snuffle to the floor.

I stand there, *******
and unkempt armpit hair on display
but you’ve already almost
totally disrobed,

the light from outside
licking your spine,
dribbling down a leg
like melted sunflower petals.

We catch each other’s eyes,
except you don’t catch eyes,
you see the other person
looking at you
and you know what’s next,

the standing ****,
dry skin and bellybuttons
viewed only by a fortunate few,
a bunch of names
like grapes squashed
into bed sheets
we won’t touch again.

I think this is supposed to be sexier,
my underwear flinging off,
boxer shorts champagne cork
towards the window,
your bra sunny side up
by the foot of the door.

Rather I watch you
peer at the skin I’m in
waiting for a shrill buzzer sound,
a number out of ten
and a spatter of applause
from a conjured-up crowd.

I think you look glorious.
I go to say this but my brain feels
as though it’s been whisked.
You walk over, slink your hands
towards my face,
put an icicle finger to my lips.
I’ve no idea what I’m doing
but you’ll show me the way.

you are the darkest thing
I’ve ever known

gulp you like oxygen
arrhythmic tick in my lungs

static-crackling
in the pit of night

the seams bubble apart
our plot thick as blood

scrunch your eyes tight enough
and the scene will play
the way you wrote it

give me smoke
and your labyrinth fingerprints
on the throat of a bottle

brand me with lipstick stains
my own shimmering pools of ruby
straight from the angel's mouth

hop-skip of our words
like stained-glass window
dragonfly wings

swelling with colour
but careful! they'll break
if you squeeze them too hard

let's pretend the morning
sleeps on the horizon
a charcoal galaxy of days away

we'll go walking together
in the summer dark
and forget what we're supposed to do
with our hearts

i wanted to write a poem
about your curls
and how they made my heart
beat like a drum played by a five-year old
who had chocolate cake for lunch
how my fingers were fighting each other
and fighting the urge
to tangle with yours and
make their way to that
chocolate colored head of yours
and get tangled in it too
and i wanted to write a poem
of how much i wanted to be like Cinderella
and leave something behind
with the hopes that you’d call me back
something like a notebook or my
polka-dotted waterbottle
but i guess the only thing i left
was a tiny little part of my heart
on the backseat of your car

She was fascinated,
hooked as if a fish out of water.
Whenever death
was splurged across the television
she’d sit upright,
the sofa would creak,
her eyes gorging all
like globs of kitchen roll.
Two per second.
She thought she’d solve them,
bust the case wide open
or some other cliché.
Reams of unresolved stories,
of women splayed
at American roadsides
with a missing molar
or red rings around the wrist.
There had to be an answer, she’d say.
Everything has answers
because everyone asks questions.
A human doesn’t go missing,
someone always sees, apparently.
She’d talk about dying
as if she welcomed it,
as if it was a real person
with bones and a voice.
One day she sliced her finger
and just let it bleed,
the thin line then the bloom
of crimson that wept
into the sink.
Two per second she’d remind me.
I scrambled in the drawer
for a plaster.