You see,
when I escaped your love
I had rocks tied to my ankles in knots,
and I walked into the lake
barely recognising myself,
just caught up in a memory and replaying
the pain in my head, so numbing that
I detached from anyone else’s love.

I thought love, real love, was about sacrifice.
You fed me lies about true love -
never ending ‘happily ever afters,’
and in my naïve mistaken heart,
I trusted to believe real love meant death -
that true sacrifice was self-sacrifice.

So, dressed in the wedding dress
(I was to wear on Monday)
my hair plated the way you liked it,
your grandma’s emeralds around my neck,
earrings dropping as a pendant, and the ring
on my left hand, I walked.

I walked.
I held tightly onto the bouquet of lilies
(were they not always meant for funerals)
and I stepped into the lake.
Cold water rising up my thighs,
cold water which actually felt more ‘known’
than the unknown land of your love.

I wasn’t even scared.

I’d washed down fear with
a bottle of pain.
I washed down fear with
pills of despair.
I just kept walking.
And the only sound I remember,
is my humming of Beethoven’s Für Elise.
In my mind, I could see you dancing
en pointe- your feet as eloquently poised
as the pianists fingers,
never in a race to finish -
just movements of grace.

And that’s who I am today -
I am the dancer
(Odette and Odile).
My humanity is now outdated -
I too, throw myself into the lake,
and, as I take my final breath
we – you and I, my lover –
are seen flying past the moon.

© Sia Jane

Maybe you will never understand why
when another insult leaves your lips
I wish I was there to kiss you and
halter any more words
you could speak,
which lost in translation have
the power to break the bones
across my heart, unhealed from
the last words I’d hoped
you’d refrain from saying.

So if I bleed, or if I cry,
or if I don’t even know how to smile,
know I’ll only kiss your lips because
I’d rather give the kiss of Judas
than hear another word.

© Sia Jane

This wild being,
this State of flux,
this simmering smear
flooding the pure empty nothing.

This mess of splintering sparks
showering out of the deep dark
like dotted dice in awkward tumbles.

This misfit unfolding of stuff
with its difficult excitements,
dimensions and velocities,
describing laws of gravity
and the functions of our physics.

This formal structure of strictures
that fumbles at the hems of ghosts
now shocks the senses with corners
and the hard fabric of substance

This insignificant star dust
blustering in boiling eddies
disrupting the vague vacuum
with material surfaces
that jar against the ever present tense

This sprawling and reddening shift
of blue sky light brimming in domes
This semblance of solidity
This striving galactic ocean
beyond all forms of measurement

All this

and yet each night I sleep
in the disassembly of dreams

Forgetting the glances,
the long dark drift
of glistening dewy webs
spread in the misty dawn

Sound as thin as air
Soft, like filmy frost
that rimes the windows
on icy mornings

A tune as quiet as breathing
labyrinths of colour
without landfall
or metaphor

Letting go
to idle and float
From the surf sea sands
Into the fathomless ocean

No strut or clasp
but in its place,
the soul can rise
in all the washing wonder of the world

One day you will want to write in rhyme
When feathers burn in melting wax,
When the Sun comes too near your aching arms.
Will you feel you know so very much
As your graceless fall turns sea to foam.

One day you’ll match sound to the sound;
When logic’s strings finally snap.
All day your instruments remain un-tuned
As you search for one unexplained fact
To keep you free and likely alone.

The curse that kept me will knock your door
With parallel fingers of steel,
Will rip your throat to take the words that were,
Leaving you staring into the well
Wishing that things were not as they are.

When time stops, stands still, with folded arms,
When every flying thing falls down,
When the world collapses there is no room,
When you lose love lust you only song,
That day will you want to write in rhyme.

That day will you want to write in rhyme.

we were deeply in love
my new girlfriend and I
and we sat under the trees
in the open fields in the starlight
and she whispered to me:
"Will things ever change?"
And I whispered back, as I nibbled at her ears:
"Nothing will ever change, sweetheart"

Then she got pregnant
and everything changed

I changed my address, my work
my phone number and my email address
my routine and my weekend haunts -
*everything changed

1
I see you, ya
I may be finger-punching
my smart phone at the dining table -
but darling, I see you, yeah
We’re seated at the table
you say something
but you think I’m listening to
Taylor Swift on Youtube
True - but hey,
I see ya, I hear you
I hear both of you
I multiply, I multi-task you see

2
I’m walking along the shops
I’m pushing the pram
with my baby inside
and I’m updating status
on the phone too
and getting that download –
but hey, stranger round the corner
I see you, ya, don't ya worry; yeah I see
my baby and I see you
stranger round the corner –
but hey, watch where your going

3
hey - I see you guys, I see you
no doubt all day I sit
in my couch tapping away
on my new supersize phone
but I’m smart hey – I see you guys
I see you my darling at the kitchen –
get me another coffee, will ya
And I see the kids glued to their sets
and little Toby our kitten
curled at my feet – why, thank you
for the coffee;
darling, can you
put a few cans of beer in the fridge –
see? I see ya, yeah…I see you all

I am your poet.

I write your name on my heart and our memories on my pages.
I write about my mistakes and yours our past, present, supposed future;
and how I love you the most.

I found it in the way my name stumbled,
Out of your mouth like it
Had weak ankle.

Too simple to eludes as,
Too complex disturbs
The instinct to grasp,
Clutching at emptiness
In trembling fear.

Years ago,
I'm sure you recall we sat together by the fire outside.
Few weeks later,
You ran away across the country,
And I haven't seen you much since then.