Si   lent
             fig   ures
                           un   der   a   du   vet
I do not know them
                            the pic   ture is not clear e   nough
                            I simp   ly can't
i  ma   gine   the   breath
              on a   no   ther one’s skin
                             crack   le be   tween   fin   gers
and so - called sparks
                             but I would dis   cover
                             the wi   res that con   nect us
und   er   stand our net   work
              like a be   guil   ing lab   y   rinth
                             quick blink - touch   es
qui   et   ly
                            crad   le your name
                            as if it were
a snow   flake

Feeling like the sea,
a single wave
blushing blue,
gathering momentum
only to fall
flat
on my face,
broken and soggy
to start all over again.

Feel the beach
with my hands,
scrabble at the sand
like a dog
ready to bury a bone,
but am pinged back in
as an elastic band.
Why does that happen
and who is to blame?

pigs in blankets
endless plates   vegetables
a rapid bang
   (spark)
crackers open   spill miniature
gifts   wrapping paper
in tatters
   whiff of fresh books
fizz of spines
when my finger hits page   one
thank you very much
fifty times   from everyone
moment to sit   reflect
no job   grey skies
   no worries
sleep in ( eyes )

Last night
I held out my palm
to catch hailstones

to store under floorboards
where all bad things are kept
like spoiled apples,

letters paralysed by tears,
junk I bought
then jammed into toasters

so at least I could say
I put them somewhere.

It feels chillier
when nobody's about,
and the roads

and alleyways
are clogged
with silence,

the inescapable
winter blackness.

I find your name
on my window
drooling away,

a skeletal row
of faded transparent roots
and when I woke

I desperately wished
you had put it there.

You won’t remember this
but that time we sat
on the steps of your cousin’s place
in Brooklyn, Hewes St., one October night,
where we stayed out
and talked till three A.M.,
our fingers chapped,
our noses tinged crimson.
I remember it because
you were cold and I gave you
my jacket, the black one
I’d only just bought the day before
and you said wow, look at those goosebumps
popping up along your arms,
but sorry, I’m colder, I’m wearing this now.
We’d been to see a concert
at Madison Square Garden,
and they were all there,
Billy, Dave, Hayley,
to celebrate your birthday five days early.
They knew, you knew
every single word,
hurling them at the band
like verbal snowballs,
your hair a brunette blur,
strobe lights in our eyes.
We left with headaches
bursting open as flowers,
sweat trapped in my fringe.
Dave was into you,
did I ever mention that?
He’s been to see you
and sometimes speaks
but he finds it difficult.
We all do if I’m honest.
Anyway, we took the F
and then the J.
By 11.56 we were tired
but not quite tired enough.
I was going to walk you home
but we never left those steps.
We looked up and down the street,
said what cars we liked and why.
A Honda HRV, avocado-green
stood out to you, a hulking skeleton of metal
I said looked ugly.
You were lonely then.
Any attention was guzzled up, I could tell.
I rambled on so much
it stopped sounding English
but there was giggling, smiling,
puffs of breath whirling away from us.
You told me your only friend
was your reflection in store windows.
Surely not true.
We all said that.
Hayley told you to snap out of it
but you didn’t know how to snap out.
And when you rang on Friday morning
we all should have listened,
clutching our phones
making sense of it all.
Now you won’t remember
and there’s blood on my wrist.
that came from someone else.

the gurgle of your laugh
   is mouthwash
in the bathroom sink
charging across beach
   like zips on coats
yours is red
   breath ragged
a tyre with a puncture
but keep revving anyway
   feet crash as bells
**** as waves
   cheeks like the Japanese flag
raspberry-ripple drink
this fizzy petrol
   makes us buzz
our vehicles rumbling
   full of three-dollop ice-cream
rattle of matches
in my back pocket
   hear the scratch-ffttth
as I let one go
   lob it towards the sea
grab your hand
swirl in a circle
   so we become smoke
swarming from incense sticks
   then we go back
the way we came
over our xylophone footprints
   if they could chime they would
me and you now froth
   spilling down the side of a pint
dialogue luminous
as a blue margarita
   ankles chatter together
ladder on your tights
   and we sail in bathtubs
to where we’ve never been
wearing sunglasses shaped
   like briquette-black hearts

I find myself here, by choice,
the swells of heat between duvet
and body and your body,
naked except for a gold necklace
half sunken in light
from the bedside lamp.
My skin is slick and unpleasant,
my toes knock yours
in the space we can’t see.

Not the first time, not really,
but the first time here.
A different mattress, pillow,
shapes that before were yours
and yours alone
but you’ve let me in,
a secret place to many
with frosted grape walls
and your name
blaring ornamental from a shelf,
seen by only one man besides me.
You told me who.
The blistered image of you
with a stranger
in the place I’m now in
makes my throat sting
a little,
makes my muscles tense
as though about to
run the hundred metres.

You look at me,
tangled in white,
a tattoo of a flower
I don’t know on your shoulder,
moving when you move,
a grey filling
clamped in a tooth
at the back of your smile.
How strange, perhaps,
I notice this now,
I didn’t before.
I wasn’t looking.

He picks up a twig,
a thin knobbly wand
and drops it in,
watches it turn,
twist like the hour-hand
                                    on a clock around the bend.

Now a stone,
a grey sphere
plopped into the mix,
as a magnet
sticks to the river’s tongue
and won’t budge.

He calls me over,
‘can you see our faces?’
The melting mirror
gurgles along,
doesn’t know
we are there.

There is no longer a light,                                                      
for a long time, well, it’s been hard to cope.                                      
April will see that girl’s flight.                                            

My, I remember that June night                                          
long ago when I wished to elope.                                                  
There is no longer a light.                                                      

How­ I'd like to end this plight,                                  
all I do is sit and mope.                                                      
April­ will see that girl’s flight.                                            

I’m weighed down by this paperweight,                                                     ­ 
pain throbs inside, so fierce, no hope.                                          
There is no longer a light.                                                    

If only she came back into sight
instead of hidden under the microscope.                      
April will see that girl’s flight.                                            

Unless the torch again shines bright
and halts me as I fall down the *****,                                                  
There is no longer a light.                                                  
April will see that girl’s flight.

What I'm trying to say is

I want that     jolt

that sudden   judder
   of something

you'll give me
without thinking

I want to feel it
throb in every   bone   of my body

I want to be     blown
backwards

   as if kissed   by lightning

I’ll see you
   but want to see you
again   and   again

like a sunrise on a cool morning

   your face being the     sun

Then you said something about
how this shouldn’t
couldn’t happen again

picking your shorts
off the floor
squirming your legs into them

like milky straws

me in bed
your reflection in the mirror
one hand in your hair

strands hurled
back and forth
as if throwing last night

out of your head

red streams in your eyes
stains on the table
and I’m static but inside

all over the place

I brought the sandwiches,
you brought the drinks.
M&S; and cress,
cans of Coke
from the local Spar.
Kids on the football pitch,
their shouts rising like bullets.
Mrs. Smith from number 33
walked her collie - waved.
Rain came. ‘Typical’, you said.
So we bundled up our stuff
as if the end of a holiday,
then in your house
we unbundled it again
onto the living room floor
with our hair still wet
and watching E4.

Around the room
I parade your stain
to gaggles of impassive faces.

Nobody asks where it came from,
who published their carmine
mark on my cheek.

But as I say hello to whatshisname
I rerun last night’s episode,
the Merlot-riddled memory.

The way you gently leant across,
your decorated lips on my skin,
and afterwards.

Everything better simple.
Everything better with words sliced to size.
The chasm between
waking and not being waking,
all moments minute
and colossal lined up,
delightful in their plainness.
The making of friendships,
a cinch, interests shared
and food eaten,
laughter that ricochets from wine glasses
with a shrill giggle.
Then the maintenance work, a doddle.
Dialogue runs as blood through a body.
Time to see each other.
Time to make an effort
to make time to see each other.
Clutching onto loves
before sell-by dates.
Labels disposed of
before they are even affixed.
No rise of an eyebrow
when the different ones
open their mouths,
revel in the spaces
where they don’t fit in.
Decisions made without
a flutter of uncertainty,
a bubble of anxiety
that bounces round the brain.
Everything better simplistic.
Everything delightful in their plainness.

I saw a scarf wound
too tight round
a young girl's neck,
tighter with each breath,

tighter with each tear
from her eyes, sliding
like her life down her
pallid cheeks.

I saw a cardigan
on the floor,
the one she wore
on that date

three weeks ago
when the boy said
'why not?' The zip
broke that night.

I saw a shoe
under her bed,
just one,
coloured blue,

worn just yesterday
when she was at school,
in English, Math, History
bored, exhausted, fed up.

I saw a belt
hung over the chair
vivid pink,
the one I think

her boyfriend bought
last year before
he went away
to purgatory.

I saw a hat,
it sat on her shelf,
I believe she had it on
the other day

when we went to the cinema,
me, her and the gang
to watch a film
she recommended for us all.

I saw these things
as I entered her room,
where the scarf I unwound
and we made not a sound.

the [ sight ] of a couple
here is the MAN
mid - 20ies
younger at a     push
c/h/e/c/k/e/d u n b u t t o n e d shirt
lARGe looks-em   pt   y rucksack
on his back
a sort of sil very-mist colour
and black skinny jeans
every1 seems to where
I’ll admit
I have a pair - pair
but they’re not wright
for my job
he (sees) me
Ilookawayquickly
but He knows eye saw Him
arms (((locked))) in a ring
a round the waist of a gir!
exhausted and eyes <shut>
flower-crown droop:ng
down her $four head
as she drops d ee per
into sl ee p
murmurs some-thing
just muFFled syLLables
probably went to a ‘gig’
music still rrumbling
as an     empty     stomach
in her ears
so maybe not a couple
friends more likely
a girl and guy hhuggingg
friendlee
friend ship
whatever it is
the train comes
screeeeches to astop
and within a minit
they are gOne
I am gOne
and yet #goingnowhere

Just because you have gone
   does not mean
when the bulbs flicker
the letters of your name
are no longer ablaze
the pages of our stories
do not yellow

when the night
unfurls its intense blackness
licks the houses
expunges the light
   it does not mean
we have forgotten the moments
that made you shimmer
as a glorious star
in a boundless sky

the days to come
are cracked with cold
but there is warmth
to be found
in the sound of your smile
which doesn’t go
but only echoes   on

now and again it goes
it only echoes   on

It started when he drove me in
and the teacher couldn't help.
After that, four years passed
like water sliding into a gutter.
What a shame the last days
are remembered the best.

A page, written on a whim,
given to her by my friend.
That was long ago.
The new wave came, swept me up
in a chilly embrace.
Thursdays, a corridor,
a newspaper for the bus.

It would never have worked.
How could it have worked?
One-sided, the colours didn't mix.
Two seasons later,
a new shade in the light.
I stumbled down invisible steps,
almost said your name wrong.

Meant to leave
but still you stick around.
I went to the new place, grey place,
new names, stories to stick
to my tongue.
A challenge in itself.

Now words I use
are used for a reason.
The waves don't shatter my ribs,
drown my lungs as much.
This phase, this pinch of time
is almost complete
but as for the rest I don't know when it

A grotty morning.
Grass pecked by frost overnight,
lead fug in the air
and I'm walking a mile
in uncomfortable shoes.

The receptionist
warbles a song I don’t know.
Ten minutes of maths  
followed by the typical
compote of questions again.

Two year four children
navigate me past classrooms,
primary colours,
shaking hands and nodding heads,
facts that drizzle over me.

Hours pass, phone cries.
The answer swells blister-like.
It’s thanks but no thanks.
He pours advice, wishes well.
I hurtle back to the start.

At some point
before dawn

I navigated my hand
into your hand

and now we swirl
like shiny balloons

from one lucid invention
of the night to another

fall out
from the back of the van,

scuttle away
like animals made of leaves.

They’ll come back
as if letters in the mail

without any crinkles
or a slit down the middle

or a welt of ink
like a bruise nudging the margin.

I’ll pick them up
and taste every syllable

before slotting them
inside empty yoghurt pots,

deserted notebooks,
ready to be revived  

so I can swallow them anew.

They all smoked in the garden
that night. Inhaling the chemicals,
the manic whirr in the lungs
of something toxic. Everybody there
wanted a piece. Their own segment
of you to cup in their hands,
taste whenever they pleased
as if you were red wine.
They wore woolly shirts
and stonewashed jeans. Bare feet.
Looking at you, a valuable gift
up for grabs. Voice like liquid gold.
Wishing you’d pick them
over the others, point a finger,
claim your prize. You had a hold
on their heartstrings and didn’t know it.
They said you were unattainable,
that you were hidden behind glass
and couldn’t be touched. Anger bubbled
between them, red kettle-hot.
Raised voices papercut the air.
I could understand.
You were glorious, untarnished.
A cleaner mind and cleaner arteries.
It was a rare and confusing thing
for them. Blonde hair, blue eyes
made their thoughts turn to flour.
You were sweet when all
they knew was acidic,
like a chunk of lemon
under the tongue.
As they squabbled in silence
we spoke. And still
they continued to smoke.

Foetus,
eyes to the floor
for fifteen minutes,
ramshackle thoughts
rattle like old objects in a toybox,
lights off and imaginary people
to talk to.
Sipping fruity juice
as girls smash together.
The trivial things bring chaos
in great big buckets.
They say I’m OK;
I say I am losing it
losing it.

A stroke they said.
Came along like a puncture,
eked the breath out from him.
Not a surprise but still
a hot bullet to the chest.
Been told his organs
were wilting with age,
raisin wrinkles sprinkled
across a seven-decade face.

Wheeled the body away,
blades of grey hair,
lumpy veins that tore
through his skin.
He knew it was coming.
Wished to kiss his wife again,
eleven years after their last.
Her name was Mary I think.
Cancer.

Had a passion for horses.
Just yesterday
put a fiver on Lust for Life
and Magic Touch.
Both came in, he’d have had
fifty quid. Lucky ***.
At the bookies they all loved him.
When I collected his winnings
I had to explain.

I think they knew
before I opened my mouth.

Winter,
and with winter comes a girl.
She greets the weather as a friend
she has not seen since last Christmas,
grins as the snow
scrunches and squeaks
as green Wellington boots
on a wooden floor.
Two men walk past her,
reeking of yesterday’s brandy.
One has sloshed a lot
down his front,
a dark claret patch
like a seeping **** on his chest.
Someone is playing an instrument,
a saxophone,
and the sound
sprints fluidly along the streets
into taxi-cabs and terracotta
coffee-shop windows.
She smiles again.
One dustbin’s been KO’d,
trash trips out
in a puddle of colours
like unwanted confectionary.
A teenage couple are kissing,
their heads a swaying metronome
and the boy grips a Starbucks cup
with one limp hand as if to say
here you have it.
Evening gushes over her
like a rush of bad acne
but she loves the sun
as it pecks the cheeks of buildings
and the jingle from her phone
which reminds her,
the movie starts at eight.

X - The Aftershock. (June 2011 - June 2012).

Understandably dismayed.
Calmed down, got on with things.
Had to.
Went on holiday.
Up north.
Weather wasn’t wonderful, but OK.
Heard from you a few times.
Got into university.
Creative writing.
We arranged a cinema trip.
That never happened.
Why not?
Said you’d get me out the house thanks to your car.
Then that was it.
Erratic contact.
Not a word until New Year’s Eve.
I wrote poetry.
Fellow students read them.
No new substitute.
Only you, still.
You changed.
Redder hair.
Out in town more.
New guys in all the images.
You didn’t care much before.
You really didn’t care now.
Slow to reply.
Fine, you were busy.
What, drinking?
Couldn’t you let me know how you were?
Nine months became ten.
Became eleven.
Told I should move on.
Ridiculous.
Ought to have hated you.
Didn’t.
You were ignorant.
Different.
But I kept sending messages.
I wanted to see you.
You had copious chances.
Why didn’t you take them?

XI - The Ending. (23rd June 2012).

Could call this the beginning of the end
because soon you won’t be around anymore
unless there’s a unlikely turn of events.
I won’t say it, what’s the point, you already know,
but it doesn’t mean anything to you,
just some person you used to chat to,
laugh with, learn with.
A year ago since the last time.
When I think about it, we’re both different.
I just write while you go out and play.
Maybe you’ll want to see me sometime.
That’d be nice.
Of course it would.
Just let me know.
Don’t terminate it now,
what am I supposed to say
when people ask ‘who’s that girl in your work?’
Will I have to call you by your real name?
We hardly speak
and then conversation is short.
Whatever comes next,
wherever you are,
don’t disdain the times gone by.
Those other men won’t care as much as I do.
This is not the end.
Just don’t forget.

In the morning, we were woken by thunder,
a vicious gurgle vaulting across the sky.
We watched the rain fall outside from our bed,
the windows stippled with droplets,
the clattering of water on the roof
like women dancing in high heels.

I breathed in your smell, wanting to
inhale everything about you that morning,
wanting not to forget our trickle of minutes.
I brushed my feet against yours, under the sheets.
At one point, our hands touched, I knew your fingers.
That’s what I thought then. That I knew them.

Your khaki green shirt sleeping over a chair.
Design of our fingerprints on the half-full glass.
I caught a glimpse of your Atlantic eyes
as you turned. I kept my words private,
wanting, not wanting to stitch them together.
Last night, lightning. Now this.

My heart is like a fatty
red vegetable,
shuddering against
my celery ribs
making aches,
making sore echoes
in the apple core of my chest,
and your fingers resemble
chocolate buttons
when I tell you where it hurts.

---------------

I take a gulp of water,
its cool clear slither
as it slips down
my pasta throat,
scurrying around
with a chilled whisper
to my meaty beige stomach
where the cold vanishes
as quickly as it came,
wedged in the side
of a potato kidney.

---------------

With a twist
my ankle made of feta
jolts just a touch,
a blast of warmth
rocketing through my foot,
blossoming in the broccoli
florets that are my toes
and then up to the knee,
a lumpy lime
that jangles anxiously
in its socket.

There was almost a fight once.
I say almost, because it was.
I saw it with my own eyes,
in the bus station
that isn’t there anymore
because they blew it up
and everyone cheered.
I don’t remember it much
because this is years ago
and I hadn’t finished university yet
but I was standing in line, as you do,
avoiding eye contact,
like the cucumber
sandwiched between a grey old lady
and a pregnant ******* her phone,
waiting for the X4
or whatever it was called.
I was eating something
and then the black man stood up,
not too far away,
went up to the elderly man,
told him to move, got in his face
like an optician inspecting your eyes
except with more venom.
You could see it in the way he moved.
I don’t know what words were spilt.
I didn’t hear. I said I only saw it.
Then he, the black man that is,
kicked the other man in the shin
with the tip of his boot.
I just stood and watched
like everybody else
because it’s an unexpected moment
in an unexceptional place
as a brief scuffle began,
a thrashing of arms, a spell of aggression.
It ended.
The old man sat down again,
rubbing his leg as strangers spoke.
The black man looked riled.
Cops came out of nowhere
as if they magically transported
to a bus depot by mistake.
I don’t know what happened next
because I got my ride home
and got on with my life,
but I like to think they nicked him
for causing a minor ruckus.
But they probably didn’t.
The buses don’t go there anymore
because they exploded the station.
I might’ve said that earlier.

what is this life?
what is this gelatinous mess?
what has been done
has been done
willingly or reluctantly
   - I know the moments
that have seen me
judder the gearstick the wrong way
that have seen my bones
rattle with a dreadful calcium clatter
my lungs like sandwich bags
flimsy against my heart
which throbs as some malformed peach
when a white chocolate blonde goes by
it reminds me of ice-cream
the chilly fuzz inside my skull
my nerves anesthetised
gone blue gone slow
   - names clamour over one another
until I can’t separate the letters
the worth keeping
the junk mail
a train spewing passengers outside
I am knocked all over as a conker
bruises blossoming into pools of Ribena
where is the asphyxiate button?
that would wipe this page clean right?
   - here is what I offer
passion by the bushel
and while I have not fired Cupid’s bow
or slurred my way through a Taylor song
I can make it work
I can learn to drive
and stop being a moth toward the light
flapping my epileptic wings till they burn
   - I will scrub the soil from my skin
latch onto you and be the best possible me
float within your ripples
swig the air as if it’s lemonade
just taken from the fridge
say I am not who I was before
I am new I am fresh I am sparkling clean
like a toddler as they wobble
to make their first step

I.

The childhood lie
of a rotund Santa Claus
who delivers gifts

--------------------
II.

Smells from the kitchen
potpourri of vegetables
steam glued to windows

--------------------
III.

Muddle of colours
wrapping paper ripped open
revealing presents

hair like melting bronze

long and thick as honey

coagulated to the waist

mellow slosh of water

viridian wrinkles

reflect a singed tangerine

shade of the bridge

a miserable dense fug

up above her head

lips like lavender

black sweater collar

cuddling her neck

and freckles dusted

slapdash on those cheeks

little marigold flecks

but her gaze grasps you

you can’t look away

she’s detained your attention

In the darkness
I hold the trickle of your whisper
like a falling feather

feel the contralto tick
of a heartbeat
skin against skin

holding each other
as if flowers
delicate in the breeze

tumbling through
a carmine flush
of desire

Black treacle,
a spoonful gums your mouth shut,
makes a mind opaque.

Raindrops disintegrate dully
against glass,
a tumble of thunder.

A car door is closed,
gurgle of key in lock,
inside - vacant spaces.

Somewhere a child is doing
all the things you haven’t done,
little gatherers,

gaining what you’ve never had,
or what fell out from your pockets
when you tried to run.

faint ****
     rise fall
          of feet
               round holes
                    where toes poke
               water wrinkles
          like little knuckles
     two three prints
sunlight swims
     subtle curve
          backs of legs
               delicate corners
                    creases in skin
               her anatomy
          sealed into dreams
     delicious whisper
and I follow

pick phone up   put it down again
take a selfie   no another one   and again   light isn’t right
what’s on Twitter   scroll for twenty minutes   pause   basically
PREGNANCY PRANK [GONE WRONG]   add to playlist
oh how can he be the president   like   says it ‘coz he can
love the warm weather   global warming maybe   but oh well
Starbucks for breakfast   lunch   Spotify playlist
like   red heart   blue thumbs-up   share   like
that inspirational quote   you know   basically   I can relate
CHEATING PRANK [GONE WRONG]   add to playlist
election   couldn’t have told you there was one
have we left it yet   like   what are we leaving again
petty crime rise   stay vigilant
something about Brussels   a royal up the duff  
but did you see what Kim was wearing   like   did you hear
what her sister did   with that guy   you know   that guy
look  she’s uploaded   why we broke up   shame
oh yeah   oh well
retweet

I ask you
what you fancy,
Hawaiian or a Texan BBQ.

I mouth
‘hurry up’,
the guy’s dawdling
on the other end,
the phone pressed
against my ribs.

A raised finger.
‘Just a second’.

Sigh.

So I say BBQ Meat Feast, er,
a Pepsi,
(we’ll use the profiteroles
in the freezer for afters),
and, er,
‘Go on, Hawaiian then’,

and I know kissing
her later will be fine
because she doesn’t ask
for garlic bread on the side.

then you would be wrong.
I have many more words
to leak from my fingertips.

I think of the couple making love
to Calvin Harris songs;
what a way to annihilate
the purest of evenings.

I imagine the man with gums
coated in whisky,
the beat under his wisdom teeth,
tie slack around his neck.

I think of the body in the bath,
the stillness of such a scene,
the silent blush of crimson
like a throng of roses.

There are not just grim slivers of life.
I will catch the moments soaked in sun.
The pen is ready,
the poems will come.

what feeling
    like a chunk of gum
numbed    by a dentist
     knowing Santa isn’t real
     milk    and cookies
gone
anyway

     lost in streets
   lost
    darkness thrills    you
chills you
   as rain on the first day
of spring
    love is a mystery
odd   one   out
among liars
lovers
     extroverts

     yet
and   yet

    feels red
when windows   creak
   open to greet mornings
musty     novels
wedged like teeth in boxes
     take them  
just a pound

slivers of kindness
   smiles to say  
   I know     me too
smell handwritten letters
     phone-calls under    swathes
     of duvet
     at midnight
to someone
their name sounds   just   right

pangs of solitude
   muted by a voice
a touch
     some words
   thrown      together

fully clothed

champagne waves
dripping translucent

seaweed hair
ankles drowning
sunken soles

shoelace ripples
grubby knees
buttoned shirt

salt freckles
stretching light

wet lips

I.

Morning pyjamas
presents between Bucks Fizz sips
new clothes to try on

--------------------
II.

We’re pulling crackers
the grab yank snap little bang
result - flimsy hats

--------------------

III.

Afternoon Queen’s speech
television show repeats
sticks of celery

purr together

   chrysalis
     of skin

tangram of
                 bones

corrugated teeth

and     ping-pong     ball
   elbows

in sync

crackling like
radio
   static

   as fingers
dribble
   over the   frets
     of our spines

psychedelic eyes
lips charged

our   fragile frames
     moving

   fluid

Straight on a plain, miles with the blowing wind.
Miles on a plane, nowhere near the mountain ranges,
nowhere near the Atlantic shore, no lapping sounds -
Just your gentle breathing
I’m just happy you’re alive.

This bulldozed land is barren,
dry like my eyes like a dirt road.
I’m stung on the arm by an imaginary bee,
flung out the open window.
This reminds me of the pleasantries we exchanged.

How polite we used to be.
And now your tired arm is slung over the wheel
angry with me. “Can you just
shut the **** up.” I’m not saying anything.
Let’s pull over at the next petrol station
get some Red Bull and make out like we’re American.

Lick the sting. Does it taste like Pepsi?
Can I be your blonde baby or your Barbie?
These dust clouds are haloing the sun,
as we sing out loud and off tune harmony.
It’s just you and me and nowhere baby.
So use me up until I’m gone. Drag on me
like a cigarette and extinguish me on the lawn.

---------------------------------------------------------
­
Nowhereland.
Head ready to burst
like elastic bands around a watermelon.
I’ve been getting angry.
Snappy again.
The long drive has left me whacked,
our conversation gone putrid,
the air swimming with expletives.
Hay bales.
Green fields.
Lost track of how many.
Wasn’t counting anyway.
Into sixth gear then.
South Dakotan sun
stretches into the car,
over your body;
I knew it well. I know it well.
The milometer slides
to fifty-seven thousand
and the silence stings my skin
like a small fresh burn
so I raise my voice - your mouth is closed.
I toss an empty Coke can out the window,
hear it scuttle over hot grey road.
Then you begin to sing, so I sing. Why?
Awful. Wrong key. Don’t care.
You look across,
destroy me so well,
the tumbling heart in a tower of cards.
I know. Stop the car.
Find a bar.
Let’s numb ourselves together
so we feel something,
gorge on US TV
till our eyes go red white and blue.
Look what we’ve become.
Just your gentle breathing.
This is what alive feels like.
Now give me a drag
of whatever it is you’re having.

Driving for hours.
Nothing but road.
Me, head slumped
on one shoulder,
watching the rain
screech across the window.
You took over
as we crossed into Wisconsin,
the pattern of the steering-wheel
embedded in your palms.
Still got coffee from a café
a hundred miles back -
now like gloopy mud stuck in a cup.
The radio throws out
another Bon Iver track
as the wipers squeak
from side to side.
Both of us tired.
I see your eyelids flicker
between awake and not quite awake.
We stop for gas in Mazomanie.
The engine wheezes to a halt,
I hand you thirty bucks
which empties my wallet.
You stumble from the car
in a sluggish daze.
I try to shake my body alive,
my limbs heavy,
bones cracking.
Phone barely has any juice.
Enough to text home
a be home soon.
As we set off again
you give me a kiss,
a dash of caffeine on your lips.
I pinch my skin to a light red.
This is not in a dream.

It got so bad
he couldn’t sleep.
Frenzied bedsheets,
pillow a swamp of sweat.
He’d swig milk
from the carton,
eyes a crush of crimson
and wouldn’t say a thing.

Then he’d mention he could hear them still.
The duh-duh-duh-duh of bullets
zooming towards strangers,
the thunderous stomach-rumble
of an erupting grenade.
I’d grip his hand and he’d cry,
shake his head, trickle out names.
I couldn’t help so I cried too.
The therapist would ****** tissues at us.

I’d be careful with noises.
If I dropped something
he’d shoot up like
an electric-shocked puppet.
Body at home,
mind at war.
He smelt death in the air,
the energy sapping from his body
as if a pin had perforated his skin.

I had to drag him up
from the bathroom floor,
as if a putrid corpse
wrenched from a river.
     Why is it me?
     What did I fight for?
That’s what he asked me.
I didn’t know, wouldn’t know,
and we cradled each other
as the shower spat out water
for a minute, for an hour.

We died many times when we first met.
They’d say electric. You provided the shock.
I was in need of repairs,
a faulty motor with a clogged-up engine,
stumbling through life
like a Slinky
yawning its bones
down the stairs.

You played me well at first,
fingers on my body,
twiddled me back into tune.
We’d die again.
When we kissed
I tasted Malboro and Merlot.
I fell right into it,
you like a glossy new balloon,
a chaos of colour on my lips
left me spellbound.
We’d die again.
Then the moment would pop.
You’d be standing with a pin.

Met your parents.
They noddingly-approved between
gulps of Heineken,
but I knew we wouldn’t last.
It fell apart, of course.
Somebody ruined the jigsaw.
Started hurling snowballs
at each other, words like razors
shredding through the air.
We’d die again.

A slammed door, gone
to the corner-shop for milk
in a huff.
An eff-you blurting
out from the phone.
The shock had gone.
I think I’m dying again.

talk

cupping conversation
in our
hands
like cool water

slipping giggles
into
pockets

caught in
the current
accepting the twists

noticing it
all

And if we were to see each other soon
before you head off to the big city,
I know I'd later return to my gloom
because I'd have to leave you. Such a pity.

I would be really thrilled to say hi too,
not so bothered what time or what place,
my hand, it would be stuck to yours like glue,
I'd really hate to say goodbye to that face.

Until that day I shall stay here some more
and wait for a message to let me know
you want to meet up, knock on my door,
say "Hey, how's it going, come on then". Even though

the good feeling won't last long, I can't wait
to see you Alexandra. It'll be great.

Then it slammed on your skin,
right in the kisser,
the leathery wallop
ski dd in g m a d l y t h r o u g h y o u r m o u t h .
Next came the blossoming pain,
a stinging ring
where the fist made contact
and you stagger back
in a muddled shock.

It was an accident;
I was getting into it,
thumping your left,
your right hand, fury
brewing inside me from somewhere
like a bonfire beside my heart.

I kiss you where it hurts,
the tingle of your stubble
rolls along my bottom lip.
What have I done?
Did I mean to leave
another burn on your face?
You don’t even blink,
a lingering black stare
and whisper with your eyes
what was that about then?

A chuckle skitters into the night.
Thought it was nothing
but now seems it’s something.

Let’s keep going.

It can be forgotten.

You jam the glove back over my wrist
and I’m ready again,
maybe, just a maybe,
hoping that I miss.

Two people are kissing
on the bus, their lips
entwined like one knot
of candyfloss. Nobody
else notices this, or does
but doesn’t care, eyes
peering gloomily out
the windows at the
belly of fog across
empty fields. I wonder
how long these two
have lasted, how long
they have brushed
tongues and laced
fingers with each other.
Barely eighteen, adolescence
prickling their skins
like heat rash, the fear
of young adulthood
a neon light down
a dark alleyway. I wonder
if they will last. I doubt it,
but there is no way of telling.
I ought to say it’s fleeting,
that in half a decade
you might not know
each other, two people
together once in some way
but now not, or with others
who have yet to enter the frame.
But it would be rude
to interrupt. They kiss,
I sit.