She lives in a time when her kids were young.
She doesn't know the surname of her daughter, now.

They could be sisters, and for all she knows, perhaps they are.
They have the same, glossy wet-paint eyes.

Who are you? She asks, and her mind drags her deeper yet.
Where's my Tom? But Tom, her love, is forty years dead.

Anna sighs and brews the tea, as her mother stares in horror at her own hands.
Whose hands are these? A reedy wail; the same question asked fresh each day.

Photo frames only confuse her. Who is that man by my side?
Anna replies with a stale, much used answer, It's your husband, mama, he's out walking the dog.

I have a dog? She asks, But then, where's Tom? And where's my baby Anna?
*Somewhere, mama, they're here somewhere. And they're waiting for you to find them.

Today I crushed you out of my life.
And it felt like smashing a beautiful butterfly to pieces
In my palms.
And nothing -
No matter how many times I apologise,
Or how deeply I carve old scars open
Just to explain why -
Could ever bring back those bright, beautiful colours of yours
Or those hopeful, soaring wings.

There are no words to describe
The Hollow
That could be considered musical,
Lyrical.
The Hollow:
No words harsh enough to describe it,
Either.
Everything is bland
In The Hollow.
The Hollow is the pressure in my skull
And your skull,
If you feel it.
It's the place that surrounds my heart -
It amplifies the beating,
Like a drum.
It is
What proves I am alive and what
Shows me how little it would take
To die.
The Hollow is the non-stop crying that they all call
Weak
And pointless.
They don't get it,
I don't get it.
There really is nothing to understand.
Because that's all it is,
The Hollow.
It's empty.
It's nothing.
It's constantly looking for something
But it's always coming up short.
It's always trying to be something
And then, learning that it's a lot,
Lot
Harder
Than that.
And that all your efforts are void.
And your whole life is
Hollow.

In my fingerprint, the thirteenth groove from the nail,
The one that curves neatly, until it breaks
(A scar, I think)
That's you.

There is a braincell in my skull that is red, not grey:
Red for love; red for anger; red for that STOP light that made me stall
(The kind of complete stop that scrambles up your nerves)
That's you.

Every eighteenth heartbeat is you.
Every flex of my left hand little finger is you.
Every wish on a lost eyelash, carried away by salty currents, is you.
Every swiftly sheared blade of grass  is you.
Every nerve ending in my lower lip is you.
Every cell of oxygen is you.

You are
Every
Hope
Every
Fear
Every
Dream
I ever had.

Put simply into words that in the end, are nothing;

You are everything to me.

There is no guilt
Like the guilt that trips
Back and forth between
Our lips.

And I have never known shame
Like five a.m.
Getting light
And desire is only just
Turning to lead.

There is a screaming
Inside my head
That begs us to stop,
But we're comfortable
So devilishly comfortable
Inside this guilty bed.

I tell stories,
And yes, I tell them well.
I give you straw,
And you thank me for gold;
I tell you I've seen things,
And you give me the respect of the old.
I am a songstress -
And no, I don't need my voice
To get you to believe that.

I play games,
And yes, I play them well.
Better than stories, because...
They are that much more fun.
Games of love,
Games of blood,
Games of fire,
And of desire,
I play them
Second fiddle to none.

I am a fighter
And yes, I do fight well.
I won't kick, or spit,
But in my eyes there's hell.
'You disappoint me.'
'You make me sick.'
'You don't deserve forgiveness.'
I say it - don't always mean it,
But you're in pain, and bleeding,
And so it does the trick.

I am a lover
But I don't know if I do it well.
I remember when I held your hand -
That moment was a story being woven at our fingertips.
I remember when we slept beside the other -
All games were consensual.
I remember when we fought together -
And well, that says it all.
I am a lover.
But I am simply unlovable.
And that's nobody's fault but my own.

This is driving me crazy
Because
You are laughing

Who knew you could do that?

And you're squeezing the sponge
That is my memory
To see what still remains of the echoes of the
Rancid mess that
You
Made of my childhood.

I blamed myself for so long but now I
I
I am breathing, and I'm breathing free
Because one of these days
You'll die.

Because you're only mortal.

And I beg it sooner rather than later.
Because then you'll be as far away as possible
As far as humanly possible
(Which I didn't know was possible)
Away from me.