i stand as close as humanly possible
to the fire for my a c h i n  g      b   o  n e   s
they weep
but no one will be warm enough
not for the lava you made creep down
my cheeks and they
course through my body like wildfire


and i, a decaying forest.
i try my best to be as useful to the soil as physically possible for dead matter.

i need someone who will love me all the time.
not just when they're lonely & bored,
& running out of things fragile enough for them to
take over & call 'mine'.

i need someone who will love me when i'm
sickly sweet cherry cordial, and not just when i'm
drowsy red wine.
not just when i'm their cup of tea that they leave unfinished in the sink because they've stopped to cry.

i need someone who'll love me even when i am a ****,
when i am a wildflower.
not just when i'm the blooming roses, wilting from the time they accidentally knocked the watering can over.

the sky sometimes sets fire to the wind and though
the flames spell out a plea,
the sky's hands remain hidden deep in his seat.

the sky watches the writhing and he swallows the lump in his throat.

they're just twirling, he hopes.

yellow stands for joy!
that's what the roses told him when they pricked him with their thorns.
when he oozed yellow paint from his fingertips, they told him it was joy.
and the red, it stood for love.
the minefield left behind when the skin was singed from his throat. it was red,
and they told him he would cope.
the orange could stand for no other than the sun - when his pupils cracked from dilating too hard, because her light blinded him. and it could never be undone.

the wind is charred now, and slithers on the ground. i hope it finds solace in being found.

there is a fairy tale in which
a mighty princess cowers, under
the vines that
wrap around her fingers.
sweet honeysuckle, they whisper brave nothings. they snake up her legs & cling onto her skin.

she needs, she knows.
she wants to rip her veins apart
with rose thorns as her heart grows.
she dances with the petals and mixes them with her hair, raining ashes into the air.

the uncanny ability to make a king's crown slide. she melts his armour & makes a gold plate, for he would never know cyanide-ridden nettles was what he ate.

poison ivy, the colour of her eyes and her envy. she throws out her silk ties and hexes the maidens next door, she sinks into her demons and lays to rot on the floor.

i held his hand as we sank into the shore.
glass shards, ripping
& stinging our feet. but
i could not ask for more.
i could not ask at all.

the ocean loomed - a heavy shadow,
too dark to be blue. it lapped at our
wounds, like a hungry tomb and
the wind was begging
for me to fall.

quicksand, almost. we were knee deep
into the wrecked atlantis of the creatures
who used to live on the beach.
they once held hands too.
they once had someone to call.

the biggest of waves it was his home it was his place i could not save him from grace it
swallowed him whole.

and i, a carcass along the shore.
i began to understand why hermit *****
said goodbye to their shells with a drawl.

tosses around her words so she can watch them fall and make a dent in the earth, a dearth. she fills it up with water and prayers but she can never harvest anything except for love. that's where her body comes from - someone else's curves, brimming to the top & exploding  with doves.

if there was ever a volcano that erupted just to shower everyone with petals and pearls, it would be her. a curse she holds to be so tender.


but god, i wish i was her.

i stand here with a hole in my chest. someone unearthed the key and dug up all the rest, their grimy hands
scratching and scraping into the dark. Unsure of what they'll find, but they wouldn't mind
leaving the tomb with a few
antiques,
maybe one or two.

i wish they bagged my soul with them.
it's rusting itself blue.

even when i am winged
i am benign,
i am beginning.
walking with my feet tied
so loosely to the concrete
by puppet strings;
made of words & cream
& other fragile things not
to be touched,
only to dream.
a marionette trembling
with grabby fingers pulling & drooling
oil onto my chest -
heavy, but it will leave me
slick not sticky,
ready for the finale.

a vine suffocates a tree
wrapped around it screaming
PLEASE!
don't leave me

dear god, please don't leave me

the tree goes limp
and its bark starts to crack
as the vine tightens her grip
till her veins turn black

why won't you stay? why are you leaving me?

the vine must not falter
for if she does
the tree will grow strong and
leave her in the dust

don't go don't leave me please don't leave me

but as the tree chokes,
it thrashes her off
and down will come baby,
cradle and all.

lady loveless heard her name being yelled
from the bottomless pit of an abandoned well

i am empty

empty

not blank

not poem-less sheet of notebook paper empty

not missing

not one missing sock from my daily laundry empty

i am empty

like the space in the glass box where an exhibition in the museum of broken hearts used to be



so


empty.

i should've listened to my mother
when she was talking to me about omens and premonitions
like how the glass slid off the table top that day
and i went out anyway

i should've listened to my mother
when she was talking about lucky numbers and feng shui
like how we met on friday the thirteenth
"mom, you're being cheesy, there's no such thing.)

i should've listened to my mother
when she spoke of trembling hands and death
like how i shouldn't have left an hour earlier that day
because the dishes broke in the sink
and my father decided that wasn't a good enough reason to stay.

i must admit that i am in awe of the way you walk past
the immigration office
(or the way you walked out that door, but we musn't dwell on things)

like you have nothing to hide - like secrets float off your cheek
(it's rather silly how your secrets are much more obvious when you toss and turn underneath my sheets)

therapists told me to take a journey well into my soul
(they told me to dive, but we both know i'm only capable of unintentionally falling)

they told me to visit my happy place so i threw a dart at the map
(but let's be honest - without you home already feels like a dingy motel.)

and it amazes me how now with all the rust you've smothered onto my veins, you still expect me to walk peacefully through airport metal detectors.

at the time a polaroid was a mark of friendship
so we decided to go raid a photobooth
but the pictures never captured
they never got the time to

because across the street was a fancy new camera shop
with a fancy new cashier
who had pretty, pretty hair
and could actually fit into a polaroid with you

but i hit the wrong button
and the flash never came
but there were pictures printed
just of your hands around her waist

i took about 50 copies
and tossed the receipt into the lake,
i scattered the letters of your name into the rain.

i'm sorry my hands don't shake the way you expect them too i'm to busy trying to collect the ocean to have a weak grasp on you and i'm sorry that i can't build a road back to you the gravel in my throat has turned into lava and there's not enough dust on the walls to turn that lava into glue and i'm sorry that when i step on glass i cry out for you although i'm pretty sure you were the one who wasn't able to split this wine bottle into two but the shards remind me of you and i'm pretty sure somewhere in this apology i said that i'm sorry for loving you

what she thought was a family portrait, was a lesson for what happens when you lose one side of a pair of shoes - you can never buy just one again, it comes in a set of two.

what she thought was a stove, was an analogy for the kind of love her parents failed to tell - there's nothing more cruel than love, nothing will feel as good as hell.

what she thought were anniversary flowers, were rolled up versions of paper planes telling her mother she now had to use her grandfather's last name, or her mother's maiden name, if only her father had let it stay.

what she thought was his face (on a pretty grand mirror showered with lace), was nothing but a crack in the wall, and also the reason why her father never called.

i met your ghost at the waiting area
outside the emergency room
you were sitting on the laps of
weeping mothers and the ghosts of
their children were sitting on yours

they said your touch would feel like bitter snow,
but delicate,
like the drizzle of glass shards
they said your kiss would feel like a collision,
like the reason so many of the casualties around me ended up in
the emergency room in the first place
they said you would make me feel like painting red roses white,
like stitching stars into the shape of your eyes

but your ghost stayed in the waiting area when they wheeled me to the yard
and so i'll never know if
ghosts can see humans too.