The only ones who know
what we did, are us.
We were teenagers again.
Living life through an
optimistic lens.
An unbearable thrill.
Hiding behind the rhyme
and words that had more
than meaning.
Taking our time but running
into the sea, slow but quickly,
the foam thrown onto
our bare legs,
the water soaking our clothes.
No one knows, they didn't see
us in the sea.
Drowning but free.

The ivy gave us burgundy
Reflections, a journal in return
Clasping your nostalgic dreams;
Postcards from former selves
Asking how have you been?
Grey between the lines of lives
You lingered and loved

Coloured ink spills tainted
The unwritten pages of
Our favourite names of ages,
Soaking the past with
A future mask. They asked,
Was it all you had hoped?
Sit back and relax, watch

Wait, only you can see,
Your eyes build those towers
While fingertips crumble them
Like rocky waves, on a
Sandy stage. Breadcrumbs of
Your soul, scented by sunlight.
How did she change you?

Ride the cracks, paper over
The tortured, unbeaten tracks
With words of others. Their
Bodies, ripened, stifled
For starters, let us begin on
Paths that lead somewhere
In between, this life and yours

Let me explore you
Deeper. Undress your mind
Swallow your limits and
Leave them dusted, behind.
Will the currents carry me?
Drown the taut thoughts, the
Drifting taunts. Enough now

Roped into settling down;
A murky sunset or a foamy
Mountain, painted between
Frothed skies, and your eyelids.
Dive into this moment, tempted
Gasping for salty air, was
It the sea that saved you?

Choked as you realise you
Can’t breathe and dream
At the same time. Another
Day, another lifetime,
Rehearsed. Wish I were there,
See you next year. How
Can I know your universe?

If you want to feel alive
Again, or check you exist
Then lay in the bath
With your ears underwater
Not silent, but still.

Hear your own heartbeat,
Listen. Absorbed and soak;
A lifeform floating.
Like when you were
Consumed in the womb
And others thought about
Your heartbeat.
But not you, you were
Too busy trying to live.

Now you are trying to
Survive, but also thrive
And running water, like
Your veins, now afloat
Amongst the disorder.

The doves are flying now, they make their winds
In every direction: hover and sail to their foreign flock.
Forget me not, plucked up the courtesy to show
You round these new haunts. Plain as a daffodil,
As probable as daylight. But the mist is lifted -
Stay with me now. Don’t let me go, but don’t
Hang around. Too soon but forgotten not. Forget
The others, they sailed the sea but found the sand.
It grazed my skin and opened my eyes. Nothing
Is clear now. Waxen wings do set their form like
Feathered tales. Forget me not for I am here;
Always will have been. Should be? Be not afraid
Of distance, for some have it grown upon them.
Sewn inside like seeds, the day they sprout will be
Goodbyes, for now. We hope, but forgotten not.

Skin
And stones,
Allow me to
Illustrate your bones
With ink leftover from
Clean cut days, sketched
With a frosty daze.

Staccato memories we
Captured on thought reels
Our daring minds, tested
As the sun-shadows climb,
Over exposed, but real.

Sleeve stroked, shoulder
Glance. Craft the excuses
Savour the fresh flavour
And take a chance. Place
The spheres to my ears,
Melody to my being.

Taste the tickled autumn
Crinkled by jeopardy,
Trace a moonlit sternum
Wilted and wanted. A
Bitten lip, suggesting
An ungrazed hip.

An ache a day, keeps
The dreaming awry with
Flustered breath, blustery
And wet. Awake but not
Alive, can it survive?

Keep your flame kindled
In my hot chocolate cup
Douse it with whiskey,
Pray it doesn’t erupt.
We’re getting older
But no wiser,
Surprise
Her.

River floods make planted buds  
Unclean, sweating blood for the seeds
Hidden in unfound prophets.
The pollen prophecies hinder
The far lost lovers, star-crossed
With their eyes to the skies and
Hands reaching deep in the seas above.
We wait, silent, and wonder. Swamping
Our stomata vision with couplets
Formed from stigmas of all the years.
Rhyming, but avoiding the answers
We crave. From cradle to grave is not
Enough. Searching signs and science
Beyond our learning, lessons hard learnt
From love itself compromise the beauty
And mistakes found on the surface of
An eclipse – blinding men and hanging
Martyrs from the stark tip of a half moon.
Sharp, revealed, they sacrifice what the church
Could not. Would not. Poison or paradise?
We will never be sure but it still fuels
The passion and bakes the bread we need
To eat and live. The sour lips of life tasted
Sweet before, but the flowers have died
Now and left their ****** marks on
The garden path. When we were young
The stigmata did not stain so much.
Clandestine and concealed to the world,
Invisible - striving for the word to be known,
But strife was not The Way. Doth with their
Own death they curse those who engendered
Them, like Faustus, who flew but twas
All in feign, for he fell in vain - and did not live
To taste the wine. Yet fallen are we all
For the sake of those two lovers –
Biting deep into the rigid skin of solid
Poison. The sickly sweet juice running
Down the side of her cursed lip
As the serpent swept their souls away.
A sharp tongue will keep the commands
At bay like spears in the sides
Of the stammered. The swollen dagger
Hearts were bitten by a Cancer
Of the stars, spreading like luminaries
Devouring ***** by *****. Only
Your hands are free to tell the story now
To bathe in the rich fountains of new-born
Life, flowing from river to river carrying
Moses baskets and delivering us to
Our stolen caskets.

There is no black and white. There is only grey.
There are no good and bad people, only grey.
There is outstanding and extraordinary,
and they are grey too.

There is her and there is him.
Nobody, no bodies. Bodies grooved, bodies removed.
Nobody but you, and you.
And us and them. And me and him.
Everyone else is mute. Everyone else is grey.
The rest of the world is grey.

The corridors of your mind are mottled with
beauty and truth, and distance and death.

But in the end, there is only grey.

The anticipation of being wanted
Waiting for nutrients of the mind
And soul and savour our saved time

We build our lives on sandstone not granite
Not a meteor that hit but a shift of the tectonic plates
Slow but strong
Ever present but doubtful of their force
Easily denied but powerfully felt

The language of us
The one you met
Different to the one you found,
Stumbled into a parched
Waterfall.

Where from here?
All chaos and silence
Training new souls for
Laughter and violence.
Keeping us young,
Telling us we're old
Where did the time go?
Not a place or date
An unturned space,
A forgotten pocket
Tucked away
In a lost suitcase.
Nowhere that we know.