snowfall and stars
you shove gloved hands
into pockets
to warm them faster

the shimmer of ice
splintered by a slew
of children
and now us

touching you
my private ghost
body like smoke
thrill of a dangerous taste

what night
crawls into our heads
drips its silence
between the wind

what names
trickle into our throats
form like frost
on unfamiliar windows

there’s something about
   boiling kettle lungs
     words slopping from your mouth
like clumps of mashed potato
     the way you have this river of dialogue
   made from papier-mâché
     and haphazard glitter
so easily breakable
   it’s best to start afresh
that makes you stop
     and place your head against
   the cool windowpane
and say you cannot do this
   you might but you can’t so no
the umcomfortableness diverted
     scribbled over with a Biro
   so ignore the sandpaper taste
     on your tongue
or the jacket of heat
     that smothers your chest
   focus on a pinprick of positivity
like a streetlamp in another town
   let the steam from the tea
     guide you to safety

In the chair.
That’s where he was,
an unpleasant present.
Eyes shut,
feet up,
miniscule pills scattershot
on the plastic tray
to his right.
Could’ve been dreaming
except not this time.

We were entering a room
pregnant with death,
the newspaper
splattered with miserable headlines
unread and uncrinkled,
a streaky fingerprint
on a glass
left after his last mouthful.
I half expected his head
to loll forwards,
his face to **** awake
and say he simply nodded off.

I turned to her and said
I didn’t want to touch a thing.
This is how it is now,
an unremarkable date
stamped into our histories,
a silence only known
in the presence of a body
expunged of life,
of a pocket of breath.

screaming
out for something
wanting it
as a child’s hands
in the air in an attempt
to reach the teddy bear

one is in London
their name grows
like a yellow flower
I want to smell
and touch with my brittle fingers
sleep in the creases
I could be a ghost
or an outline of a figure
with a blueish hum
an inaudible echo

they dance under
streetlamps I have not seen
and **** in the glow
of others of course
who are painted
in shades of utmost tranquility
assured in their abilities
I want to reach into their mouths
and heave it out from them
have it all for myself

I feel the water
slip out from me
as if a rusty sieve
and nobody is catching
the little hexagonal pools
in the palms of their hands

streets my feet should be on
but a riddle of issues
erupt from the page
bad acne teen
harsh black bullet points
sinking into my lungs

there’s anthologies to share
splash through my dreams
because you can
I tiptoe into tomorrow
with holes in socks
uncertainty my electricity
finger at the switch

there is
steam on the mirror
like a milky cellophane

and squiggles of water
in the bath
from half an hour ago

half-dried footprints
are a language
that leads

to where you sit
in dungarees
hair dripping and slippery

a beaming delight
with mahogany marble eyes
crescent moon smile

and we mention how we’ll walk
down capital city streets
choking on their own traffic

giggle at a fingernail
smidge of coffee that grips
my upper lip

skirt past knots of tourists
bury our heads
in a bookshop

where floorboards snicker
where we murmur a story
among many a story

and say how goodbyes
are rotten apples
if you’ve yet to say hello

I want to be the image
on a loop in your mind
a technicolor exclusive

the word that camomile
soothes your throat

teardrops of light
that speckle the walls
in dawn dreams

the little flame that melts
your frozen fist
of a heart

there'll be a ball of socks
hugging at the end of the bed

and you'll teach me phrases
my throat has never
truly felt before

'When you grow up, your heart dies.'
Allison (Ally Sheedy) in The Breakfast Club (1985).*

look at all the ways
there are to
stay in touch
to communicate
in a combination
of pixels or a line of
finely-cut black letters

now look at all the ways
nobody does
a life you were given
segments of
shrunken to altered pictures
pipette-fed but no real words
swimming into your ears

frosted glass nostalgia
former vivid events
gone hazy with age
and you
and everybody you knew
going on with names only coming
like a balloon in the wind