my inner body has been touched
by none other than me
no less times i suppose
and pleasure no less too
but feeling
and craving
and breathing
of another that i love
i have not yet felt in my aching walls.

I have made friends with the birds nesting above me
In my nights alone
When I am full of you
They murmur along
Nodding at the right parts
As I retell myself the story of us.

Glutton
Swollen child
Raised to expect love
Like water from a tap.
Reliable
Plentiful
Clean.

And I'm scared to write
putting pen to page
in case the floor gives out
as well as my brain.

We spin round one another
in places, friends, conversations, songs
Circling
Orbiting
We both know we’re there and we’re aware
But we pretend to be oblivious
The distance too breathtakingly close
The gap too heartbreakingly wide

the days seem long
and the nights longer
yet weeks fly by in blinks
of eyes too bleary to really see
paralysed by a fear of doing
dissatisfaction leaving me helpless
immobile
lost

What if I said
All of those things that have been stuck in my throat for months
Would it change you?
Would it change us?
Would you unravel into my arms
Like petals coming loose?
Would you see me for what I blankly am
and would be be how I always dreamed?
Probably not.
For I am too nervous and bound tight by convention.
And anyway, I don't know what goes on behind those deep brown eyes.
In that life of yours that I don't know about.

But tonight
You kissed my hands and for a second I thought
You saw me.
But then again
Maybe not.

She breathes into me
inhales deep
and relaxes back
and I think she might just be the greatest thing
That I've ever had.
fears others all
do not exist
Only her.

She leaned in
and I held my breath
thirsty for what she might say.
She told me something she has told a thousand people before me.

All the blood ran out of my body and out of the nightclub and into the sea.

Water falls
droplets dappling flesh
Pools gather where your skin soaks in.
My eyes dive in
I cling to your shores -
let go, and swim
inhaling in the waters of you.
I gulp,
but it is salty,
and stings my eyes
when I see.
My fingers run through each stream
searching for something to cleanse me
But all I find is weeds

How do people do this?
I am so full of love I can barely eat
She bubbles inside me like wine
I’m spinning in the swirling glass of her
I can’t keep her from breaking out across my face in a smile
It’s her it’s her it’s her it’s all her
I am less me now and more her

You can sit with your shame and you can sit and sit and sit
And you can let yourself climb down into the coldest depths where you think you belong
And you can bargain and promise
And plead that you’ll do better
That you know what you did
That you’re not like the others
Or you can let it go on the breeze on your knowing
Bet it all on the little brown nut of your love for yourself
And realise that it wasn’t you all along
That you’re good
Oh you’re good you’re good you’re good
And sleep,
with the comfort of your own choices.

How can you be so close to the centre of my axis
and I so far out from yours.
Surely out orbits would have collided by now?
I guess not.

Our love was secret
I delighted at the hidden bits of you
that you were entrusting me with
We swallowed sunsets and mornings
Days of messages and small smiles
orbits speeding as we circled one another

I know that you love

But do you only love accidentally?

I’ll be ok

The vapours of her will leave my body soon

Because that’s all they ever where

Vapours.

I keep going to the river to pray
say my words into a rock and sink it in the pool
tie my doubts together like daisy chains
And let the stream pull them out from me
I slip my clothes off
crack my shoes from my feet like shucking oysters
Dip in heel-first
Let my body flow after
I sit like tea in the shallows
Sins dissipating from my skin in swirls
push off from the mud
mouth open
Gulping at the river bed
My flesh cooling to meet the temperature of the water

Can’t stop
feeling the shape of people
Trying to see if they will fit
Into the space I cultivated
Just for you

And I loved a girl once
From the same place as this band I like
I hear her sweet missives in the angsty twang of their songs
And when someone talks of New York
I picture her running about the streets
Before she knew me
Breathtaken in the easy newness of it all
And when I think of southern England
I think of the trip we took to the coast
Her bright eyes leading me from London
Hands steady on the wheel and my thigh
And I can’t visit the town of my youth
Crochet myself through the crowds on Cowley road
Without looking for her by the house she used to live in
I see her body pushing mine into the red brick of the Middle Eastern takeway
On that warm night in April when she first showed me her longing.
And often when I'm in Clapham
Driving past the couples walking slowly in the grey snowed-grass
I’m haunted by the common, dusty with bottle tops
and the smell of smoking
Light august rain as she cried at my swollen tears

You’re not allowed
To listen to songs that make you think of me
yet not message me.

You reach back round for my arm
Which had fallen away from you in sleep,
As I, too hot, had reluctantly rolled away,
trying to maintain some semblance of chill when faced with the heat of you
But you
You move with me, following me into my roll,
Your body not happy with being left without mine
And love, that was everything to me.

bodiesbodiesbodiesbodiesbodies
Earlier your body was pressed into mine
As closely as two skins can be through layers of clothes
The movement of your head and breath on my shoulder as we tried to swim in the last dregs of us
now I run at you, hard
My shoulder hits into your stomach
my arms crash you to the ground
My weight landing on you, hard
Bodiesbodiesbodiesbodiesbodies

Why do I want to eat things that make me feel sick
Like a confused dog.
Why do I still want you when it hurts me like this

What am I supposed to do with myself
now that I don't even have the promise of you?
I need to be fed.

She reaches into my chest
every day
And pulls out my heart,
looks at it for a while, turns it over in her hands,
feels its heady pumping weight
And lets it fall to the floor,
as if she never even felt its warmth.

You reach back round for my arm
Which had fallen away from you in sleep,
As I, too hot, had reluctantly rolled away,
trying to maintain some semblance of chill when faced with you
But you
You move your body with mine, following me into my roll,
Your body not happy with being left without mine
And that was everything to me.

I went bed shopping with my mother
Watched her touch the fabrics and shake them out
Imagining how they’d keep her warm in her settled life.
And all I could think about was you
And how I was in your bed
And the furniture in your room
And the smell of your neck
And how I wished I could have made a room
Beautiful enough that you’d want to stay in it.

I lay on her sofa
Eyes closed
Not sleeping
Gently waiting for her to be finished with her post-evening necessities
Water
Food
Checking her emails.
I smiled to myself,
With each wet chew of her bagel
Each soft sound of her tongue moving in that beautiful mouth
I imagined I was the bread
and she was eating me alive.

Low tide
I wait and I wait
You enter me
In dreams
I can’t scrub the smell of you
My head

I don't know what to do with all my thoughts
Now that I can't let them be about you.