Paint a picture of my silhouette
With your exhalation i was taken elsewhere
I can't stay the night
But I'll wait 'til tomorrow
Come for more,  
I dare you to ask for more
You could stand in the street all day and everything would change but you.
Come and find me and I'll show you my world
My places, my favorites, my firsts
The alleyways and back streets have our names written in gold
Black soot streaks our cheeks but we're smiling
Here is a place we could call our own
if you'd take down the shaky facade
Let the rain drenched sidewalk be your foundation
it's yours if you want it

someone called me dynamite today.
if you've never been called that, i'd like to tell you, then, that
you are dynamite.
so
explode.
fizzle.
light up.
be put out.
light up again.
trigger a spark in someone's eyes they didn't know was there
fog someone's vison if just for a moment. taint their perception and blur their minds
dazzle ignite crackle sparkle
be an ember red, hot, strong, passionate, warming, deep orange
use your flame how you want and
be
dynamite

It meant a greasy burger from the diner on Main st.
A sweaty drive in that noisy ford
with ice cream melting in our laps.
It meant skipping prom
to watch Lord of the Rings on your mother's couch
and never once look at the TV.
It meant reading your favorite book,
and pulling up grass by the roots
to busy our hands
and keep them from wandering places they shouldn't.
Us was the color of the stars when we lay on our backs
examining the milky way
and tracing our names
in constellations.
It meant the arguments at midnight
about the purpose of our lives,
what it meant to be and to belong,
and why the world was no musical,
and no wasteland either.
It meant the only obstacles
were curfew
and your awful cologne.
We were the music on that record
you gave me that first night out
when you took me to the cinema
and when I got home
I spun the vinyl for hours.
We were the color of the rolling hills
in the pastures
when we listened to our favorite songs
and discovered kissing
while we waited for the school bell to ring.
It meant the light always shone
and the rain only fell
when we felt like walking in it.
And it meant that sooner or later
we had to learn what it was like
to be an 'I'
after 'Us'
And we had to learn
all over again
to live without a 'We'

We were listening to California Love when your friend left my room at midnight
and you decided to stay longer and move onto the single bed of my dorm room.

I didn't ask for you and I to be alone in my room.
I didn't ask for bruises on my neck or a permanently locked door or a situation I never thought I'd end up in—
but somehow I ended up with them.

You want to be a model and it shows—
you wanted photos on your phone
of us making out before i kicked you out of my room
with a smile on my face because violence
is scarier when you could reciprocate it
(i know you're not above that).


you started crying because I am "so beautiful,"

taking off my shirt
"too beautiful to pass up."

"Like Barbie"

It took me twenty minutes to convince you to leave
with California Love playing again on my laptop.


California only loved you because they love ****** up try-hards who did too much coke once and dropped out of university.

It started at the beginning of adulthood
where the wandering into the new house
became a chore. The doorway greeted me
by snagging my woollen jumper.
The motorway was screaming, the battered gate happily hanging from its hinges.

His image first flashed into my sight,
And when I stared through the fogged up windows
I could still figure out his figure.
Loutish, he sauntered past
On a hillside, desolate.

He didn’t move for three hours.
He was most probably entwining the thorns from the bush
into his complex mind. Maybe
the boy with the thorn in his side
Had been brought to life by this mystery animal
With a mass of unkempt mane.
Unruly, unnecessary, untouched.

The notebook on my kitchen table lay untidily
waiting to be roughened up. I picked it up
and cast light over the paper.
I imagined him doing the same
But his art was thunderstorms
And mine merely a drizzle of rain.

I made progress
and the flowers were growing from my fountain pen.
Confidence developing, I invited him inside
And there were still no words from his unfathomable jaw.

A month later, we became one
and I still didn’t know where his intentions were lying.
I’m a girl afraid, does he even have any?

Ink *** after ink ***
I ran even further in this marathon of confusion.
I slowly slid from his dismissive grasp, his matted paws light
I had drawn graffiti over his portrait.
a permanent marker changed beauty into art.

I crept before his wake, into his sleep
And his lyricism lay imbibed in the walls, the desk, the door.
I felt the gale force energy cry inside
Which erupted like a volcano, turning remnants into ashes.
Face down, mane rough, scars bright, fur singed
Interior managed.

In the morning, I lifted his heavy paw away from me
And placed it peacefully beside him.

I felt eternal summer there
And ran my fingers through your hair;
And though I can't recall what for
I'd hang my camera on the door.

I locked my books with bits of string,
In a land where telephones do not ring,
And opened my windows up to hear
The babbling of students and tourists near.

I remember buying a pencil, light blue,
And drawing a picture, to give to you,
Which remains in my wallet, and when I see it I laugh
Because I drew it on the back of an old photograph.

I regret never dipping my toe in that stream,
And taking my tea without sugar or cream;
But I wish I did not uproot grass by the bunch,
And maybe then I wouldn't miss it so much.