I have not ****** in my stomach for over a year,
but I have reverted to
wanting to be a tear on your face again
that evaporates so slowly, it looks like an angel’s
halo for a little while. We never
have good nights anymore, me opening my mouth is equal to
desperately taking off my clothes like I
used to
when you had not been inside of me in weeks. I am an
infant begging for attention,
crying, my need for love is incessant and miserable
and you hate me for it now. There is a filter
in your voice,
if it had an appearance, it would be the bottom of a mug
of tea or static on a television screen –
you don’t sound far away or distant, just full of something I
cannot touch. A wall, immunity
to my advances, this sort of mistress made of brick.
All I want to do is
keep your sadness company, but you
cannot recognize my body in the dark. You have me pinching
blood vessels beneath my skin
so pain will not
keep me alone in my room like you do,
it is getting bad again.      (I am getting worse again.

My own body is abandoning me,
the flesh and blood falling out like clumps of hair.
I never wanted a second heartbeat –
already have one too many

but it came with
a full moon; my cycle in its final stage,
to purge and be young again

purge and be hollow.
He or she has whispered, vital things can leave
too, stain your thighs
red like footprints down a path. He or she found the
door easily. I whisper back, you were

a light
too bright for my house
so you set the whole thing on fire.

Ashes, singed skin
float from my crevices like a cloud –

I did not know that
some things can take up too much air before they
even need it
or that I can mourn what
I would have wanted dead anyway. It is

like everything I could
never love
just wants to remain a pink bloom on my *******
until I wish they would have stayed.

we’re hipster lovers with our
baggy sweaters and tortoise-rimmed
glasses.
your choice in music is too cool,
i gobble up literature like oreo milkshakes.
we’re hipster lovers
with our admiring Blake,
your multi-colored jeans, my eyeliner
thick and sharp.
you’re the hipster boy with unruly hair,
and cool as a cucumber temper.
i’m the hipster girl cool with too much sadness and
a fetish with Plath.
we make an awkward, cute team, you and i.

i’ll borrow your drug impacted jumper,
if you keep reading me zen poetry,
and we can dawdle inside indie
coffee shops while we hold
hands and sip
slowly.

I told her :
"I hate him 24 hours a day on weekdays,
abhor him most of the time
until I'm in bed with him and we lie there
saying nothing except my declaration
that we're not having ***, and he says 'OK'
I hate him 20 hours a day on weekends
on average. I despise his existence while
both of us are vertical. I feel tired when he's not
there."
She nodded and kept on smoking, world weary,
having heard it all before,
she nodded twice.
I said : "We'll fight tonight"
she laughed and she was right.

The rain makes your
veins look like
dark black bra straps
underneath a veil of Topshop sale items-
the bangles were bought elsewhere.
Though it's not their size that worry me,
it's what look lives within your eyes
every time you run a finger up your arm
and back down your arm again;
the charm in your slightly curling autumn leafed smile
curls a little more, turning smooth lakeside skin
into Nile-esturay wrinkles that say save me Tim.

Your red delta cheeks pulsate
in the late afternoon sun coming in on
a diagonal through the newly installed,
doesn't quite close properly, velux window;
you ran through fields only
to end up teary eyed in the kitchen
doorway threshold.

But here, here is where your river 
meets my sea, and turbulent tides
swell up to ferry us away to new coastline
continents:
forget we ever swimmed and swam,
poured sand from our shoes,
held hands and ran, and
forget we held hips on train station steps,
shared lips, left and then hid.

*When you see this you'll know it's an apology

World traveller.
Suit wearer.
Likes The Shawshank Redemption.

He's off to a singles party
somewhere in Doncaster,
it’s Christmas themed
and fancy dress
though it’s
planned for October the 23rd
during Christmas's only rest.

And I know that in Donny
you find love where you can,
and I know he spent hours
revising his master plan fancy dress idea,
but a raw turkey outfit, coloured
like **** semolina once bought
for a Jamie recipe that didn’t quite work,
won’t cut it on the dance floor.

Before I hide myself away
for another night awake,
I'll look up between letterbox gaps in the broken blind
to see the moon shift six degrees southeasterly and think that
in the next seven hours soft eleven light will leak through as
an alarm-clock-call no one asked for.

Before I walk out the door
for another day of yesterday,
I'll look for the wind coming down the road
to ask it if it's bringing me something new on its coattails.
Ikebana dalliance?
A chance blur with her?
Or something old and the same as before?

Every Friday night we
hang out and make out.
We talk and listen to music,
and we know the night isn't getting younger.
When you're asleep at my house I always think about sneaking a cigarette,
but I know you can't stand the smell, so I don't.
I end up falling asleep.

Every Saturday morning I awake at your house
and sometimes mine.
You're always the first awake,
playing on your phone.
You lie next to me,
and I put my head on your chest.
I love the sound of your heartbeat.
We eat breakfast, get dressed, and go out sometimes.
By the end of the day, we end up at your house on Saturdays.
We fall asleep like we normally would, cuddling.

On Sunday we wake up,
the normal routine.
We always eat waffles or pancakes with your mom, dad, sometimes your brother and ALWAYS Gary.
We always go somewhere on Sundays,
whether it be New Orleans, the Mall, or the lakefront.
By the end of the day, we go to our separate homes,
and Monday comes.

As kids we played football
maybe you call it soccer
but it doesn’t matter
There was this pitch
in the park across the street
from my childhood town
tucked away in my memory
like distant church bells
and the smell of honeysuckle
on that pitch we played world cup
or full scale games if enough kids were out
and we got competitive
mud tracks and red thighs
never actually keeping track of the score
just who was playing best
and if I’m honest
it wasn’t often me
but it was never about the game
it was about the bonds we developed
on the field all building towards the same goal
a picture of crossbars
and side netting
and grass greener than it could be
in any other slice of time
and the sound
the sound of leather boot smacking against the ball
still wet with rainfall from the night before
we played football as kids
because at times
it was the only thing that made any