I wanted to love you forever
I wanted to think you were gorgeous for the rest of my life
I would grease my hand with ******
For it to explode at your very touch
So you would know how privileged I was to be with you
I would sit still for you forever
If it meant you would only look at me
.......for the rest of your life.
I wanted to give you my patience
And learn how to cook with you,
I would let you do my washing up,
And start fires in the bedroom.
I would learn how to be happy
And to not to take you for granted
I would learn to stop, and just be, me.
I wanted to take you to places you had never been
And that isn’t a metaphor
I wanted to write these poems for you
Because it would show you how much I loved you
Yet it was more than love, and whatever that is.
I wanted to show you off to the world
Be proud of you for the rest of my days
I wanted to make you better than you ever thought you could ever be
Make you believe you were worth it,
Worth the wait
Worth me.
I wanted to wake up for a thousand mornings and bring you tea
I wanted to wake up every morning for the rest of my life
And watch you sleep
And think ‘I could never love anyone as much as love you right now’
And find it all hard to breathe,
Even if you had snored all night long.
I wanted to get in a car with you and drive without a map
Get lost, take wrong directions and laugh about it later,
Drive around a roundabout 3 times because it was ‘our’ thing
I wanted to make a lot of things with you.
I wanted to split open my chest and show you
How very much my heart beat just for you
How this very muscle that keeps me alive
Is in love with you
And you are my life-long support machine.
I wanted to kiss the end of your nose every evening
And tell you, ‘you are the most beautiful thing,
In the entirety of the universe’
I wanted to tell you that your very essence,
Your very ****** soul and your being
Is my entire reason for living
My entire reason for waiting for you,
For my entire lifetime and its worth.
I want to make moments and minutes
And pictures and laughter
I wanted midnight walks down empty beaches
I wanted forever and ever
I wanted happily ever after.
I wanted a lifetime of lifetimes.
I wanted always and always.
Til the end of time.
But you ****** it up.
Really
If I’m honest....

You Learn

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,


And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.


And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,


And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open

With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today

Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.


After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.


So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth…
And you learn and learn…
With every good-bye you learn.

Jorge Luis Borges

I felt it, i had it, 16 times down the road, i had it. cut like ***** clean on ice down the back of my throat. Tickled my tongue with wishes of lust. 34 days crashed into 3 and half hours of manic words, thrown out in to the air accompanying articles of clothing i wished we'd never worn. I cut it open early, i could smell the beauty of the fight that was to come. I would not protest, because 'thou does protest too much' you would say as you clamped my hands behind my head and threw me down like a linebacker making his 100th play with the cheerleader watching from the sidelines. I threw pictures at you, ones i had taken when you weren't looking, ones that you wished juliette lewis had been in the background, sashaying some old country moves. I found eyelashes in places i had never felt before, counted a thousand wishes off the palm of your hand.

Zipped me right back up like some old vintage boots, turned me around six times and downed your beer and told you to try it just once, and i would kick your ***, bruce lee style circa 1982. I lost my lines, found them under your footprints, lost my voice and found it imprinted underneath the lipstick you left on my inner thigh. Breathless i watch you walk towards me, like a mirage, like you were swimming underwater, fully clothed. And whoooo-weeee HOLY cow, i gave you one more over-the-shoulder-knock-me-out-backwards-she-was-the-rumour-i-tol­d-ya-about stare, made you wonder eh? Made you think i was something else eh? Never think i am anything more than what you think i am. I wore those boots, i frikkin owned those boots, and **** i looked GOOD.

This is a moment. How great is this? I am not waiting around for it, for you, because waiting means i have lost time. I would rather dream of you, idolise our future, walk around like i owned the place, hold my head high and make nuclear footprints down weary roads. Every day, is like this to me, i am not perception, i am not thought, or theory or idea or time....i am no-ones government.I bent high and low, warped and wrapped my face around forces i could not understand, stretched my arms wide open around the world and its sons-of-a-*******, and it still didn't fit, so threw the ****** off.  My heart is tattooed on my arm, slightly above my scar from that second-time-round-relationship that got me nowhere, but i cut it out, that's me, that's how my love rolls; thats why my love rocks; bad *** high roller, floating, fighting-til-it-dies, beautiful awesome heart.

So i packed up with my cigarettes and my phone in my back pocket, met you at the car with a bottle of JD and two limes. I thought you looked too good, your hair like that, and your half smile. I wanted to make you a movie star of local proportions, so that the credits would hold your name and mine together in lights, and local boys would be too scared to ask your name. I made you a cd, sat with my camera and took pictures of the places you said you hated, watched as your collarbone played hide and seek with your hair, your mouth moved to songs you didn't know. 16 times i turned, 16 times you got me, i had you at that. So i took off my socks and shoes and got ready for the drive of our lives, because the needle was better than the reality.

Philosophies generalise the feelings of love. Too many people talk about how to feel. Famous people give quotes out like Kleenex and we 'the beloved' faint under the weight of them. Each awakened person seeking the truth from those who have experienced every human fear rationally. Love begets love. Hatred begets hatred. My mind begets my mind.  I am like a heat seeking Labrador, seeking the truffles in the forest. Simple love appears to be simple. Nevermoreso that which a mother can give to a child. Even a child that doesn’t appear to be wanted or loved; the one that hides in the depths of our belittled subconscious. Rejectionment is a term that I have coined from the philosophy of modern society. Abandonment is a drug that we steadily take and fail to acknowledge the buzz of, buying more 'things' to fill a anxious fear filled void. We are the lovers, we are the thinkers, we, are the walkers of this earth; unimaginable freedoms we destroy.

How can one love oneself amongst the unimaginable pathetic existence we carve out, we bleed out and we live? I am because I feel. I follow because I was led, I fall because my feet catch me. I love, I love because this is what Disney stories and fairytales have taught us. I fear the heart that beats so deeply within this body. Detached, I feel from reality, because the stark realisation is too heavy to bear. That some lover will not think i am quite the picture of lover; that i do not feel to love myself equally. Yet I carry my arms; I have ammunition strapped to my chest; those that get clear have to sign treaties and pacts. Linguistics fail me; they speak unapproachable truths. A meaning is much better conveyed in silence, without looking into one another’s eyes.

Heart, passion, love – this is what I have to give – money, reliability, profession, friendship; this is all learnt. True love from ones’ mind is a given. Fear is learnt; hurt is learnt; embarrassment is learnt. Stories I have, tales I can tell, counsel I can give. I am NOT finished. I am NOT done.Thank-ing you. Flying free as a bird in flight; it's inside my soul - but my body is wrapped around capitalist chains – should, must, need, want; pleases, thankyous – a vicious cycle to make oneself feel worthy of the very being we fail to allow ourselves to believe in. We are not pretty, we are not amazing, we are not worthy unless we allow ourselves to be justified by something outside of ourselves.

So what can I do? Having an indomitable tower of strength inside this soul, face the world, against bombardment, against attainment and loss, figures and acceptance, congratulations and detachment. Music clears me, air clears me, understanding clears me. The world clears me. You clear me. Love, blinds me.  See this, these words? This me thinking, this is me feeling, this is me. Love me, just me, I dare......

I would have this girl, she would have a black bmx. We would ride chest to back, my hand prints burning on her shoulders. As she wore her brown raybans, she would call out to the cars nearby, she would howl like the mutt dog, and race after tailpipes. I would love her slender hips as they twisted over the seat and her legs tinted by the sun as she pulled tricks no two-bit dollar ***** had never seen, just to catch some sun. It looked like she was thirsty for the heat, and she was packing it, whooo-whee, she was packing it. And I loved her from her helmet head to her scuffed cons, from where she had put the brakes on, just to turn around and kiss me in the rush hour.

Anything to have you near, girl, I would tie streamers to my wrist to make it look like we were flying as we rode past the world. I would stand back and hold my arms high, wearing my scruff deep headphones, and a tie to clip her heart to. She wore her grandfathers cap, on her days off the ramp. It was too cliché to wear what the others wore, and she soon too became an article of clothing, many tried to copy and clone. We would lie on the grass, chipping beers bottles and picking daisies, that she would string around my wrist, promising to one day buy me a sidecar.

I tied a plastic rose around her handlebars, and left it for her to find in the morning. She woke me up with a kiss and a cracked mug of tea and told me we had some riding to do. I climbed on the back of her, and tied my arms around her charity shop tee, tight. We zipped between traffic and I told her ‘its a lipstick jungle out there’  and placed my nose behind her ear as she sought out new paths for us to sneak down. When the evening drew closer we found each others hands, and kissed parts of the skin that had arrived pink with the sun, and melted every so slightly into each others hips.

And then the wind came, it threw us off the park and past the roads. She left in the morning dressed for different days. She came home caked in mud and I washed her hair in the bath as she lay with her head in my lap. I told her tales of battles on ships, and stories of fighting, surrender and rising again in the new light of day. At nights we sat by candlelight and sipped ***** wearing lilies in our hair. We sat ink to ink, in bed and watched forgotten movies and laughed till we cried from the sham of it all. We understood each other, her pants hung low from the moment she moved to the time she stopped. Her, my girl, the one with hat and the black bmx; She was my street fighter in a pavement world.

I remember when we used to sit on the swings, we would laugh and play with the sky. I watched your legs as they flew through the air wanting to touch the unknown, eager to feel freedom from the ground. I remember when we would lie on the grass and feel diamonds in our backs. We never moved and we wore sunglasses because the sun exploded as we turned our heads to talk. I remembered how much I love you, I remembered how I would look at you from the corner of my eye so you wouldn’t see, and wince at your beauty. I remember you being beautiful.

There were many memories to keep and lots to discard. Everyone feels this way, everyone feels lost at what to do. It’s ok, you know, to feel, this, way.  I imagine you thinking of this, as I do of you. There is some old time 50’s tunage seeping through the background to this picture, it spurs me to get to my feet and dance with you. Your hand in mine, feels like I am touching a firework; like there should be a warning label attached to your ***. Whoa girl, do you know what you just did? I am the coyote, you are the roadrunner. You are the music, I am the encore. You are, you are, the be all and end all. You are the night-time that the day awaits. You are the star in my shine.

You make me feel like this is possible, even to write these words makes  my mind blow like a dandelion in a august hurricane. I never knew rumours would grow into whispers. I never knew my heart would ache like you had hit me with a truck, full frontal, BAM. I never knew your lies. I wished I had listened. I wished I had taken the time to not know better. I wished you had taken the time to know me before the cigarettes and the alcohol and the late nights where I wished you would dance with me instead of watching, waiting and seeing. I got lost somewhere, your words lost their meaning.

I wish you a beautiful happy ending, forever ever after

I wrote it on the back of my hand one day, I told you that I needed you – you wiped the smile off my face with your thumb, like I had smudged the words right out of my mouth. You taught me invaluable lessons I am sure never to forget, I was schooled by you, in ways I never really understood. I was a child, innocent by the very lapels on which you grew me up. Dragged me up, scuffed my shoes at the front and back. Untied my bra strap with your little finger and told me, listen here, love, I know exactly what I am doing. Made me believe in you, you did. Made me fall for every word. Made me fall for every whisper of love. Tenderly I was hooked by you.

You were the machine of my creation. Your greatest ever work of art. You sculpted my very inner being, tied me to my soul with burnt fingers and made me believe I was worth nothing more than ****. Your purpose was excellent. Completely fooled I was, your succinct underhand ways grievously ruined my sight. No longer could I see reality, living in world prepared for, cooked up and served by you. I lost a lot of blood in those first few years, a lot of good stock died. My passion became my greatest detriment, for should I talk you would take the words from my mouth and mark them in the air; deconstructed with a red pen you would make me realise my mistakes.

Thank you for all you have done. To me. For me. With me. My ear is no longer connected to your mouth. I can breeeeeathe without having to miss a step. All my love that I was proud to possess had been given away, but I was proud to have failed you, I was proud to weep under you, I was proud, to have loved you and not gotten away with it. I take full responsibility for all my tremendous actions, the ones I gave for you, laid down in honour for you, to wipe your pretty little feet all over the back of my head. I turned around to face you and slapped that face right off your mouth

Loved I was by you. Needed I was by you, to be, you. I wrote *******, on my ******* fingers and shoved them up your ****. Now you talk my language, now you wait for me to see you. Now you know I am no longer your dishrag, your teatowel or your muse. Got it back I did, got back my heat, my fury, and glory. Action packed with honour and fire, loving and loved. I learnt from you lessons which I shall never forget, I was schooled by you. Wanted to thank you, for I am no longer afraid, my sweet ******, of you and your heart. This is a glorious world, one which you will never feel.

mirror mirror, i  fooled you all
felt you, feel, before your very fall
i wrote your name with upon my skin
let you feel the blood within
and with my tears that fell awry
it wrote your name
against a white brittle sky
i wrote you of fortune, and misery alieved
my own private passion was worn upon my sleeve
i cried a thousand words from my bed
and in their ink they wrote
a story we'd wed
and it wrote how we'd founded a world untrue
it wrote how i was a knight not worthy of you
it wrote a nightime of lessons unlearned
and it wrote a passion of times untermed.
I cired from these tears
as i stabbed at my breast
these words i had wrote
so clearly across my brazen chest
under my left clavicle
under my heart
i wrote in the nightime -
'til death do us part' -
and i picked at the blood upon me
so honest and so true
and every drop
was blessed, with an ounce of you
for no matter no what
for no matter your name
i still would feel your loss
your rebuttal, your shame.
and i cried ink stained tears across my cheeks
and i wandered your loss
not in days, not in weeks.
And still as i write this with digital pen
i wonder if i am me not now, but then
my lovely, my wonder
my wonderous show
of how you showed me love so
long ago.
I sit with a pen and i wonder what to write
my ink blots are messy
and such a distaneful fright
that even i, as a woman
might seek light from the night.
I whispher sweet nothings to myself
as i cry with a teardrop so selfish, so rare,
and i mean as tho i cry, from a world, so selfish, so rare.
My nothing, my everything
my world end in sight
i long for you, play for you
each and every night.
Though i know you have left me
half starved, beaten and cold,
you have left my darling with a wiltering soul.
All i did was try to love you
that was never enough
and what might it take for you
to feel
my love?

I would remember half dunk, half remorseful
that you would hold my hand a certain way
it would stain my heart
that knack you had for holding me so far from you
and then i would have died just for that
touch like a man seeking glory

I would regret in those twilight hours the
times i told you how beautiful you looked
with your ugly heart
and faceless brow and forced smile
and the knack you had for me to willingly
unwind myself
for you to ravel back to-get-her

I would like to think my lips made an
indelible print on your forehead
and tore through your broken mind
thoughts borne and torn through deadly
actions you learnt from other
soldiers
demented from the ache of the heart

I would pray to sleep alone without
the imprint of you echoing around the house
your words like compliments
spat at me like posion darts of deceit
which lay at my door
for it was my fault
you couldn't let it all go

I would take back my sorry's
and my fighters stance
my bulletproof face
that stood in front of your glass house
and watched your life implodel
and i scraped my fingers through the wreckage
in the hope you weren't hurt

I would
I could
I should
I had
I did
I came
I left
I remember

I want to love you forever, not just for an ******, or a half
I want you to see you made my mind explode
so i could sacrifice my hearts worth
to keep loving you,
as you are.

I want to see you in the morning, and last thing at night, for a while
the way you walk, and move, i want to see that, i want to be
inside of you and feel that way you move
i want to hear your voice
the way you speak
your words.

I want to feel your hands over me, within me, calling me
I want to think with your words, how they talk
you make my thoughts faint from it
from all of of it
you beauty in a language,
of your own.

I want to be with you, even for an hour, to feel
your delight, your passion, your beauty
its all like adrenaline to the heart
and yes you do, you know
bring me back to life
in your kiss.

There is blood in my mouth,
liquid steel from sharp words that are cut from my teeth and flicked out of my mouth by my tongue.
My throat is literally drowning from words my brain produces
but cannot stop from throwing forth;
my mind producing thoughts like a steam train on a new track.
Clickety, Clack. Clickety, Clack.
And i thought different,
of you.
But my teeth are bruised from speaking to you,
my air pushing from my lungs, to give me breath to speak to you,
is death and rotten, it is done with you,
and, me.
There is blood in my mouth,
it dries around my lips and cracks open
everytime i breathe.
Sometimes i wish you had just hit me with your words,
that the cartilage under my nose had cracked
from the force your words threw at me,
that there was a full outward combustion
and it ran down my face,
dripped off my chin and left the building.
My brain keeps thowing these punches,
left, right, under, left, dive, hook, run,
and i am losing this battle, that began a fight,
that i never began
that i never wanted in the first place,
but there is now blood in my mouth
And i need to mop this **** up
and start again...

I watched them as they walked down the park
pants hung low off skinny white bodies
smoking long cigarettes that hung from their fingers
and seemed too long to be really there.
Summer. And heat.
Ice melts before your eyes and the waves drown the madness of the rain.
Nothing to lose and everything to gain.
People sitting in love on couches in their homes
Hiding from the sun, because, its…dare i say it…too hot?
I wear my hair tied about my head because its cooler that way,
but yet i am not cool.
My skin browns as i turn in the heat and i watch the children playing,
playing outside.
The tv has died a slow death. Adverts are crying out for attention.
Languidly we remember, our days in the heat, calling for friends with earnest voices.
Our hands trail through the air. We make promises with clouds, and prayers to the sky for a breeze that will cool our minds and bring about change.
And now, its all done and finished.
And i am slept from the night and drifting from the day.

I thought I kissed you and tasted a shooting star. Later on by the fire of the sunset, I watched as you burnt out against the mark of the sun. You left a mark in the grass between the car and its tyres. You reminded me of a shadow. I touched you and cut myself on your edges. Rusted by the fight between freedom and pain. Losing your way. Oh what a day. Oh what a week, a lifetime of me and you, between the tides of the sea. Breakdown on the way across the sky. Do or die? Do I die? Patience with this game was over a long ago. My attention span is only due to my lack of self control. Controlled I was by the beauty of you.

A coffee break is all you are to me. I never drink caffeine so think
yourself...lucky I made the risk. I never planned to jump into the room. I never meant to make you crash and BOOM. Curiously, curiously and curiosity killed the kitty cat. Black as a bat, I can't hear the fear in the night; I do NOT understand your fight. I wear my hat to the side because I like the way it looks. Beside my bed is a pile of adventure stories in antique books. You aint an adventure to me. I am bored by your ****, your *** is nothing compared to size of your mouth, that kisses as tho you were being filmed. That talks to me as tho I understand **** and look like it. No. Thank. You. I am gone, I am done, movin up, moving on.

I would marry him by the time I was 35 if I was still single and renting this rollercoaster ride. I will forget you stood by my side within a week or two. I will laugh tho at the times you though you knew me and really I was just bored. Of you. Name your price, make me feel I am worth your time. Blow my frikkin mind, you don't have to be cruel to be kind. I am not a monopoly game, do I look like  Miss ******* Scarlett? Don't try to make me see what you can. My eyesight is blind sided to thoughts of you and all I wanted to do to you. And I did. Your loss, some other girls gain. Someone else to call my name. Shallow you may think – oh no – this my dear is all a show.

My scar still bleeds from you. A tetanus jab was not required at this time. I am never wrong, I am sometimes right. I like to jump on my bed and dance to music in the mornings. I looked at you, sometimes, long ago, thought I could see your sunrise. You were already burnt out. I don't believe in creating miracles. We could talk all day about you, and I would know nothing. Good morning you. Watch as I walk away, into the crowd. I'll forget what you tasted like but I won't forget I tasted you once.

I take solace in you, in the very essence, of you. Something so pure and enraptured. With some beauty broken and unseen. Wrecking havoc from behind the nuance of distant piano music. Hidden by dark corners in backstreet bars, poorly lit by penny dropping candles, I wait, my love. Where you stride in a hat, with a cloak, and dagger. Mystical, whimsical, she sits far too serious for the barman’s liking. The soft tread of footsteps behind your right ear. Is that them, are they near? My heart feels brazen tonight. My passion is white metal heated from the flames that ride on your words as you stare at my eyes. Who am I to see? I am blinded by your beauty. I have nothing but blind faith and your hand to lead my way through these crazy backstreets that lead to places called Love, and Happiness Forever After.
 
She sits divulging her time between counting the panes of glass in the ***** window, to naming clouds; she recalls in a day dream the hop skip jump of counting sheep under a blue pearlised sky whilst she laid by your side and the dream turned to light and the nightmare began of where she was chased and she fell and she ran and ran and ran til she was in your arms again. Take a breath now, no more midnight shuttles hold your answers. No more driving to the end of the world to see the beauty of an eclipse that turned out to be a mirage, or something like that. Moth to a flame. That was how I would describe myself now. My insubordination to the logistical temperament that loves within, lives within, sorry resides within my head. It was a short term let, now a foregone conclusion that a permanent resident you have become, naturally. For who am i, if I am not a full sum of all my parts? And in the night when you turn to me, it is I that sleeps soundly dreaming of you. No-one else.
 
I remember the days which we had forgotten about and I smile because in this movie-scene you are holding out your hand for me. God such a fool to be needed, to be wanted, to be succeeded and included and evaluated to come up smelling of roses. And now, all I can see is you, a lifetime of audit of love, and oh my sweet, what a pleasure it is to love you, to just love you. My heart tonight could defend from dragons, and rockets and wolves and, and, and...I, my sweet, never has my heart beat so kindly, so daringly than when it beats for you. Turning over in sheets on a bed we made from our bodies in the night before from the morning after, our eyes have not left the pillows and we pray for the day to never end. For evening comes and we have to bend and break and move from our respective shapes from our loves nest. Put on your hat and your very Sunday best. Come let’s leave this place and make people wonder what we have been doing.
 
I dance in your music, I am enamoured by your passion and your laughter. Your heart beats wildly like a caged butterfly on your chest. No-one to anchor your pride, you float by my side, uplifted by balloons, each one brightly multicoloured filled with an air of a previous flight of fancy. And my, your smile for me, for it is just for me, too many times have I been knocked dead on my feet, you slam the air out of my body with that very look. The whole world falls away and you are just looking right at me. Hold my hand and I shall surely drop down the cracks in the pavement. I hear you, I see you, I feel you, I taste you and in everything I sense you. You are never not far from here, tho I sit in the backstreet bar lightly counting moments, you are coming to me, my love with nothing to your name but the thought of my hand in yours and a candle to light my way.

A rose blossoms yet she knows her petals must fall, and in your hand lays the very reddest of roses

I had a dream
It started with chapped lips and a chilling fog, that cut the skin like paper on a bad day.
Trees were huddled around me, like they were drawn to my fire.
I crackled words from my broken lips, whispering slightly
The wind caught my breath, and sent my words to the air.
I was lying on a stone altar, with a lake within my minds eye
Long dark pre-raphaelite hair lay languidly draped to my waist
I was covered in a white shroud that blessed me like armour run steel
Not one sound covered the ground
Not one person held my hand
Not one person could see through my eyes.
Without knowing, or conscious, I moved from the plinth to the ground
The hard cold familiar feeling of earth under my feet.
Grounded. Both feet on the ground.
Connected.
There were streams of sunlight filtering in the areas most men have not travelled.
It looked like a safe place to tread a wandering path.
No-one heard me travel across the path
No-one came to see me.
Trees swayed towards me, my protection from the sky, who was trying to capture my words.
I ran.
I ran, and I ran and I ran.
I looked for arms to hold me, and save me from the darkness.
I ran.
I felt my feet lift from the ground, each step a jump, hop and skip into freedom.
Freedom, through the sunlit passages of the forest.
Headed to the lake, I hid behind bark and branch.
I lifted my face to the sun.
It showed me the way through the trees.
I knelt at the shore and placed my fingers in the water, which lapped at my hand, hungrily.
I walked into the water, it lifted my shroud and my body.
I lay there. I lay there and heard the water whispering mantras in my ears.
And I lay and let the whole world see me, for what I am
And they looked and stood,
And I never felt so safe than in the ground, the air or the water.
Let water begin where ice had begun.
I am at one.