I lie in bed at night,
And my hand rests in the dip between
My ribcage and my hip.

And if my fingers were larger,
And longer,
It could be your hand there.

In the morning, I crawl out of bed
And I fancy I'm your lioness,
Hair ruffled, stretching for the sun,
All gold, all lonely, while you play with others of my kind.

She fits him like a glove, and
He will keep her warm, and
He’s burning her up, as
She turns to ice.
He’s a drug, and
She’s feverous, and
Nobody else can see it as
She dies.
He’s her poison, and
He’s only hurting her, he is
Built like a vaccine and he’s the bad one
In a batch of a million,
Killing her softly. She will go
In her sleep
In his arms, and
She will count herself lucky, because
She knows that he will cry
Because he cares, and they were made
For each other.
The killer, and
The lover.

Beautiful curves
Like conjoined maltesers
She melted under your touch,
And you crunched away all her inner toughness
With each little nip at her neck.

It was hot and
She stuck to your fingers.
So you bathed together,
Hot and steamy
And then you melted too.

I love you.
And honestly, I hate you.
And you're all that matters in my life,
And I don't care at all about you.

Because I don't need you.
I don't need you.

I need oxygen and hope,
And happiness, too,
That's true.

But you give me my happiness
In rations
Like it belongs to you.

And the air we share will run out
One day,
And it's hopeless.

But it's the best thing that's ever happened to me,
Discovering bedlam,
Bed land, with you.

So to Hell with it,
Say it, won't you?
That you love me too?

Because I do.

I do.

I do.

I'm glad I'll drive your next girl insane
With my phantom kisses that
May or may not have left stains on your brain.

Because you see, as perfect as she will be,
I **** red lipstick and trilbies and kohl
And it's rare in a woman to be able to watch Top Gear
Without thinking of safety hazards, and seatbelts.

I hope she knows that however loose she wears her hair,
She'll never be as wild as me.
And as cool as she sounds,
I have a bite like a kiwi,
And I always leave an after taste that isn't strawberry and sugar.

So yeah, she's suave and calm and collected, and that is **** fine,
I'll give her that.
But I'm sarcastic.

And I call you out when you become too boring,
Like for instance,
Not making me mad at you at least once a day
For making me think about things that I would like to just blitz over
As I do with many other things
Like the people who loved us.

Because all we needed was each other.

And although she pouts,
I smirk.
She has big eyes, but mine are of lynxes.

I'm your own personal minx.

And she knows I'll always be wrapped around your neck.
And however close she gets to you
I'm always right beside you, inside you
Every breath she takes,
Every mistake in love you make.

I don't want
To break with you.

Can't we still be babies
In a tub,

Tattling to our mums;
Watching our worlds end,
And still falling asleep as friends?

I want to still be
The angle-face good one,

To your fantastically beautiful spiky one,

But you see, with age,
Comes bitchiness and a sense of

Self respect.

I never had that before
Around you.

Oh, I was your good little dolly,
Darling of your heart

But you like to beat that muscle well,
Don't you?

Much harder than necessary.

So why then
Do you think that
This constriction and skipping of a beating
Was a surprise attack of the heart?

Something presses on my throat.

I think it's my past.

I can't turn round the corner of memory lane

Without seeing

Your face at every window.

My mind feels haunted.

My skin brittle as glass

Too much heat

From embarrassment

Or touch

And I will combust.

There's a bruise on my collarbone.
I waved it off as, um,

I'm clumsy?

But if I am I guess I just walked straight into your kiss.

My dress is clinging to the scent of your aftershave
And my cigarette,

But they're both secrets

So I've locked them away in the back of my mind, to keep them fresh.

And I've hidden the dress at the back of the wardrobe, just in case I forget.

For all your promises and kind words
You are not here.
I have no faith! That's a fact, and you are faithless to me;
And I believe in that like I believe the Earth is round.

Where were you last night when I wanted to hear your voice?
When I had to endure this person popping in to see you?
Sorry, didn't think anyone was in...
So pretty, this person. Poppy, her name, a scarlet flower
Like the colour of my breaking heart.

Did you tell them I was non-existent?
And do you use me as only an 'imaginary' paramour?
The truth being far too shameful to admit,
That I exist and that I love you, and that it is you who are weak
With your weaknesses for flesh, and sordid flowers.

You cry like a crying of wolves when I leave.
You talk to me sweetly about tiny things,
You give me the edges of the puzzle, and I have to imagine
The bigger picture. I'm living an imaginary life
And that is on your shoulders.

I'm lacking a soul, or so you say, and you cannot see
That it is you who is making my life soulless
Draining my colour, turning me grey.
You act as though it is me who drags you down,
But that is only life my dear, and if you wish to ascend to your heaven,
Truly, you'll find no halting hand from me.

I dreamt once that I danced with you.

Fox trot,
White dress,
Dim lit room.

I looked more like my grandmother than myself
But you just looked a better version of you.

No needle marks in sight.

You told me you liked us this way,
No fighting,
Everything clear, reality perfectly defined.

No confusion, nothing bad,

Just us, a gramophone, love,

And just when I don't need it most,

An alarm clock to wake me up.

And the sound is no dancing tune. It is

As harsh and loud
And crass
As the you who stirs beside me,

As unromantic as a broken record.

They are cruel because 'you can take it';
In their eyes, beauty is strength.
When they go home and tell mocking tales of your conquests,
They hate that they will not wake up, this morning or next, with your face.

They are spiteful because you have all the power to be.
Although you might choose to be kind, let loyalty live.
In truth, they see in you what a child sees
Under the bed, in the wardrobe, in the eyes of a dentist.

Try telling them that, inside, you have none of your outer glittering iciness,
And they will only try to find where the venom hides,
Crunch underfoot the pearls of honesty,
And padlock your perfect cage a little harder than necessary.

But you can not let it hurt.
That would upset the balance of things.
If you show your humanity, they will show to be lacking in theirs
And the world would be turned upside down.

And for all their moaning, becoming the victim of their destruction would be your worst crime of all.

Once upon a concrete fairytale
There lived, and loved, a girl
With eyes of cuts of sky
And lips of roses red.

She aimed to be kind,
And she aspired to be perfect,
And though it's what you saw
She often fell short,
Like a shot of whiskey;
This lovely, golden girl.

If she so wished,
The stars would have been her hairnet,
The midnight ink her silent gown,
And suitors the slippers that caressed her feet,
The ones she walked all over.

She was described as
Spring; as laughter in liquid form
To be drank in slowly; as ice
On the spine - so revitalizing;
Like your future,
Like everything you wanted.

But she didn't want
Any part of herself.
She found her words too sweet,
Her beliefs too strong,
She found her own life and song too stifling.

And her Prince was a long time coming.

And you watched her wither,
Eat poison apples, and wake herself up,
You watched her become still, and quiet,
With the lonely that froze her
Out of her own heart.

And so you, her jailer, with your watchful stare,
Took pity, and, releasing her,
From her self made chains,
You told her to cut her hair, to dress different,
To do anything to reanimate her mind.
You gave her the key.

And she used it.
Then she threw it out the tower,
So it could never again enslave her,
And then she jumped after it.
Chasing sweet, unparalleled freedom.

And she lived happily ever after
In the hearts and minds of men.

No puppet strings attached.

Lead me to grace
Allow me to be an angel
An angle in a line
180 degrees perfect symmetry with you

What is love?
Is it an abstract?
Black white blue?
Cheesy and tacky?
Or something sinister.

Little Lou,
Picks up a ***** and bucket,
Sand dusting her lips.
Small nose, freckles spreading along pudgy cheekbones,
She's a summer baby.
A lady of the sun.  

Lou!
Chases ***** with guys.
Lou has scraped knees and a ponytail up high.
Lou is twelve years old.

Loulou is a prissy thing,
Pale arms, skinny and lean.
Laughing to herself.
Hair falls in waves
Shimmering in sunlight.

Louisa, oh Louisa.
She's breaking hearts,
Her tan is from hard work.
She fetches a frisbee from a tree,
Manicured hands,
Gloves for Little Lou's tiny digits.

I know they've been sung about many times before

Cursed at more times than I've breathed in oxygen

And I know they'll be here for longer than I'll be

And they'll go in their own time, winking out without flare,

But now, if they could feel the cavern gaping in my chest,

Deeper and blacker than dark matter,

If they could hear this scream, supersonic, ultrasound,

They would simply cease to exist.

To the man with
A thousand contradictions cradled within his skull,
The very same man with
The hard eyes and the gentle hands;
I've resigned to resolve
My resolve
When it comes down to solving you.

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.

I have to ask myself
Sometimes

What's the reason for my bothering?

You don't think twice
You're never nice,
And if you are
You don't mean it.

You're distracted, you're off
In the clouds
And I'm down here
Waving to catch your attention:
But you can never see ants from planes.

But still,
I'll try

Because it makes me happy,
Makes me feel like I have a purpose.

And that purpose
Is getting you to crash land
To reality.

Impossible as that is
Without one of us getting hurt.

I used to own the board we shared, your knights,
I had my spies in your Bishops, and your confessions were mine.

I played my strategies so quick,
That I stole your heart without you even registering the thievery.

And as often as you breathed, as often as I laughed,
I would say; 'Checkmate'.

But somewhere along the line I got complacent
And you stabbed me in the back, simply by growing a spine.

I think I've been in recovery for half a year now
Because I've forgotten how to play.

Didn't you at least try to clear the cobwebs in my absence?
Because everything looks so sinister now, and I don't like it.

And everywhere, daisy-chain crowns lie rotten,
Like the wasted queendom of my youth.

But you,
You still proudly wear your crown of bloodied thorns.

And somehow, all my pawns have turned to dust,
And the board has dirtied its way to black.

Everywhere is open to you now,
What once was mine is yours, and yours alone.

And now, I've lost my footing.
By all rules I shouldn't be here

And everywhere I turn,

Checkmate.

I imagine that one time you told me about

When you came into my room and watched me sleeping.

You said it made you happy to know that I was there

And in that moment I wouldn't yell at you, or look at you like

You were a stranger to me.

I remember that night

That I dreamed all the dark things in the world were hovering over me

With sharp teeth and hungry eyes

And whose grabby, pushy, possessive hands

Would smother me at any second.

My fingers dig in to the light and shade
Grip to his shoulders and tighten on his neck.
The friction ignites us,
We're flint,
And we're sparking.
I've been blinded,
Blindsided,
So often by this
This thing we have.
Us;
We lost it before
And now I have you back
I will burn up every little part of you
So that when you're done with me
And I'm through with you
You will be nothing, and cold, and empty
And needing me,
Depending on the life I stole from this friction.

Built like a shard of ice
She grows taller in cold climes;
In environments hostile to
And envious of
Anything that breathes.

Hard flung words may try to break her
Howling winds will shake her strength,
But she is rigid and growing sharper,
Too spiky to think of bending.

With all the potential to break,
To crack, dissipate in the onslaught of storms
She screams into the avalanche of hate and says,

I am you,
And we are one,
We are one kind

All of us are lonely
All of us are hurting
Each of us doubt the other
Only feel our body’s pain

But when you cut me
You will be the one to bleed,

One day, when you learn to feel what matters.

It doesn't matter now.
Not today, and not tonight.
The Foxes are foraging in all force,
And they will not stop until they draw blood from ice.

Feeling bereft

Isn't an odd thing, an entirely new thing, or disorienting

At all.

But my head is spinning and my guts are churning

And all

Because I cannot call you. My fingertips are stuck on the first few numbers

And the key

For the padlocked zip on my mouth...

I threw it away, out in the trash.

Along with all the common sense and hope for us I had.

Be the best that you can be
Love forever, forget my worth,
And heal a soul, or two.

Mine is a heart that's been dropped more than once
What use is a damaged thing?
My bruises have bruises
But there's nothing you can do about that, now.

Yes, I scream out loud sometimes
When the rain buries the roof
And I drown in a bubble of air.
So I'm sorry, but nothing has changed.

But you're so far away, so don't you worry about that.

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.

How easily you kiss me,

Like a plaster:
Lay it on.
If you mess things up again, there's more where that came from.
It's a small comfort for a short time
But when you take it away,
It hurts.

And sometimes, it takes part of me with it too.

Cracking up, like an iceberg,
And just as cold
I lose shards of myself
Into this black abyss that is my mind.
Whole pieces of me fall,
Unwanted.
I am lost.
I become nothing, water streaming and not stopping
Sections of my entirety
Lost.
I drift these unhappy miles
Searching, searching
For a wisp of myself and my original soul,
But I am lost.
Unseen beneath these slick waves
I distance me from all my other atoms
Forgetting
With all my power and all my malice
I could have crushed you first.

Somewhere along the road I turned into
A bit of a nightmare,
Right?

With my laugh too loud and my heels -
Head in the clouds
Each night.

Crushed by bodies but I'm the last person in the world, and
I've brought it on myself.
Such a sight.

I need a window cracked ajar
So I can breathe
In submarines.

I need an umbrella
On sunny days
And sunscreen in storms
Just because I think they've got it wrong.
I always seem to tan in rain.

I need a little more laughter
When we're all dressed in black,
And at your wedding, in your tux,
I need you to find me for a little cry,

Just so things are normal.

And just so this funny old
Un-funny world makes sense.

I think
I'll stop playing for keeps.

Love has been a long time in throwing the ball back,
So I think
I'll just drop out of this game.

Find a new one.

Yeah.

If I approached a guy
With none of the fear
That piggybacks on attraction

Chances are I'll be bold,
And he'd love that.

But still, he wouldn't be in love.
And I'd have to do things by half.

But I hate holding back.

So I think I'll just stop playing altogether.

Some days I
Want to forget you exist.

Those are the days when, crowded by faces and laughter
I get lonely
Because you're not there.

I want to pretend that I've never known your love when faced with
A glance between myself and that Adonis technician,
Because I'm just dying to be someone's goddess myself.

I want to forget that you were ever born when
Looking into the faces of all my friend's babies,
I know that yours must be a thousand times more cherubic;

Whoever the mother is.
Because I know she will be beautiful.

You have a passion for collecting fine art, my love,
Then breaking it apart.

I remember being me.
What's it like to be you?
Somebody asked me once, and I said it was... normal.

But in truth, it was like having this massive black hole of power in my core.

Being me:
Knowing that if I didn't smile at someone of a morning
They'd spend the rest of the day hating their brain, thinking their name was on everybody's lips
For all the wrong reasons.

Being me:
Knowing that if I wore heels and a tank top,
A girl two years younger than me would start to tweet
About wanting to diet
Not an hour after we say our goodbyes, me towering over her as I hug her loosely,
Because my ribs would hurt her otherwise.

Being me:
Knowing I have some wash of beauty on my features
Knowing my impossible curves rival Helen of Troy's
And knowing my detachment meant the end
Between me and my only honest friend.

Being me:
Never asked to do anything,
Because it was obvious I was too busy, my hands too soft.
But secretly lonely, and outside plotting plants with my father,
Because he's the best girlfriend I've ever had.

Being me:
Painting pretty pictures.
Well done darling girl.
Do you want to see my book of self portraits?
They're perfectly ugly, in black and white, and I love every one.

Being me:
Hating every girl who looks at you funny
Saying no to every other guy,
Because I'm waiting for the day you look at me funny.
Saying yes to everything you ask, because I'm stupid, and I'll play your games
Though you're not perfect.

Being me:
Saying goodbye to all my friends last May,
And not hearing from a single one of those petty people.
I think they'd had enough of pretty people.
And I think I can say the same.

I remember being me.

Being vibrant.
Being brighter than the sun.
Being much too harsh to look at.

Eternity is a nice word.
Like a night that never ends,
A hug that never releases,
A love that never leaves,
A life that never fades.
Eternity is a nice word,
But it's not something that you or I
Could afford.
So don't you dare make promises
You cannot keep.

Shot of golden light
Bringer of smiles
Christ, you, Sir,
Are a ******* *****.
Or is that me?
And are you a mirror?
Probably.
They hate me
They do.
And so it's me, not you.
I love you, come back?
Never leave me.
If I promise to never take my lips
From your neck,
Stay in my bloodstream for ever?
Oh this,
This is true love.
Now let's hide under the covers
And cry about the world
'Cause it's crying lies about us.

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.

If I could get back all the years that I wasted
On being so perfect for you

It'd be like getting a pension.

Having so many years to spend, all at once.

But all the miles racked behind me
Would just slow me down.

When given a second chance
We rarely seem to take it.

The weary are stuck in their ways.

You sit at a piano
We're outside and we're cold.

We're talking about second chances
Now we're apart, now we're old.

I feel your shoulders. You got more toned.
In contrast to anorexia, my fingers have gotten fat.

I miss you, you miss me,
I leave. Almost.

And then you say, you still have to work on things,
The way you talk, what you think, and what you want.

And I am proud of myself for getting angry
For throwing your pride and prejudice right back at you.

I say that you're not perfect either
Your voice, your touch, and your respect for me:

I've had better. But I still want you.
And I know it. And I'm glad you know it now.

I don't think of you during the day
Apart from when I'm on the bus,
Journeying through a dream land to a tangible destination.

Your face fades into short sightedness
Until I stumble across old photos,
And hold them close to my face, close to my heart.

Your blue eyes are now part of a mood board of mine,
Instead of my entire outlook on life.

And I never believed what a friend the morning could be.
How well the dancing trees would listen
As I pour out all my secrets
To be absorbed, like carbon dioxide,
And be exhaled as harmless oxygen.

They whisper; give us the tales of Summer,
The Autumn with its wind and its match-making rain,
Give us that Spring you spent alone,
And we'll show you the light that grows,
Out of the Winter
That holds your soul.

And we conspire
And we laugh,
And we promise
To heal things
To grow things
And to eat,
And enjoy,
The fruits of our labour.

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.

In a way I
Want to let you go.

I will build a headstone
With the salt from the tears
I've cried.

I've flowered enough blood
To give you as many bouquets as you like

You've given me plenty,
So I'd like to give some back.

Gratitude is making me teary
Or is that the knowledge of the nothing

That will follow all this muchness?

This is a weak kind of mourning.
I will never see you again.
Please, stupid girl, believe it.

Oh...

That is it.
You are gone.

Breathing, you walk out the door,

Dead to me.

I changed.
I know
The blame lies with me.

It festers within my growing limbs
My lightening hair
And the fibers of my fight-or-flight muscles
Honed through experience
Of running into mistakes
And away from confrontation.

Your kind of confrontation.

Bully.

Best friend.

What's the difference?
They're one and the same
Now that I've changed

For the better.

We were innocent

Quite a while ago.

We did not know

That holding hands was draining love

That sharing hats made thoughts too personal

That raindrops melted our skin together

That our frivolous youth

Made us inseparable

And existing impossible

When we parted.

My thoughts are hiding under stair wells.
They like the smell of your skin
And they vibrate with every beat of your chest.
They are in close quarters with your eyes.

My thoughts are buzzing in the air about your ears.
They have a bite like mosquitoes.
The weather is hot - my thoughts bare all.
I like the taste of your mind.

My thoughts are burrowing into your brain stem
They make you shiver, And when you touch them,
Touch me, I feel paralysed.
But in a good way.

My thoughts are quiet now, but they're screaming.
They don't like the silence, but they endure.
Because the skin is whispering, love,
And it's telling stories of us.

Don't look so shocked when you hear it,
You really were not hard to beat - however hurtful that is.  

His eyes are much brighter than yours,
And they light up like glow sticks when he says hello

His arms are iron, whereas yours are cheese strings:
I feel like a kid on a climbing frame, at last

He doesn't roll his eyes when I stutter, or mumble
Self-depreciatively: he chuckles along with me

His warmth makes me believe in stars, and stories like spun gold,
Which draws me out of your tepid fog

Unlike you, Mr Sullen, he goes about his work without complaint,
And I feel like a rosy teacher's pet when he talks me through it

He has a smile which affects me like laughing gas -
And I think I'm becoming addicted.

You are now a fading moon, cratered and dull.
He is...

A rising sun, warming my blood.
And I hope he'll run forever in my veins.

Once I was so shy
I
Wore a groove
In my tooth
From eating my hair

And my words.

Once
I stood still so long
I grew tall,
Pulled by gravity that dragged my head along

Far and far away from the ground.

If that makes sense.

Once, I ****** on Jelly beans.
Then,
I chewed on your thoughts
And spat them out
Mangled up

Oddly, kind of improved.

Once, evolution visited me
And like a baby chimp
I grew a broader skull
And thicker skin
And I filled my flesh

Pushing out all air and dust within.

Just a little spinning oak
Leaf

Flimsy,
Born of strong roots

Destined to decay.

I wanted to be so much
More

And perhaps I will be kept pressed
In a book

In a romance novel

To mark the page.

Close to the words:

'I love
You

Dearly',

But never quite immersed.

I visit a city
And there is blood on the streets;
Dried blood,
War blood,
Blood from my own heart.

Women birthed here
And died along with their men.
And the babies became soldiers and bled.
And died.

And there is blood from those who dared to love
To hold taboo soulmates in the dead of night,
And they're all sleeping now, safe and tight.
Mass graves and funeral pyres
Leave for little room in their retirement.

The streets are clean,
But listen to the blood as it sings.

Need to make you see

The love I bear you

I...

I can't.

Love is the fourth state of matter -

Or fifth, I haven't counted them lately.

You will never know it exists unless I bash your skull in with kisses

Crumple your hand in my hold

Cave your face with the strength of my stare. That same gaze that's trying to memorise -

Or map - every eyelash, and the tiny mole just above your eyelid, for further exploration.

If only your heart could compress

Any time I touch your chest

Then I

Then I think you would know.

No need for explanation.

No need to punch or kick.

In your eyes, I see a storm.

Tells me that
There is no safe harbour anywhere -

No point in trying to dock in your arms.
Nothing left to hold me down now.

And it's starting to rain.

And I have nothing to say but

Sorry.
I am sorry.

I forecast this morning all wrong.

Clenched fists
Sweaty palms
Darting eyes
Too ashamed
To meet.

Bickering
On and on
Friends growing tired
Impatiently holding
Sweet breath
While we waste ours.

My sharp tongue,
Flicking,
Forked;
Devil Woman,
You called me,
I inflicted such pain.

You,
Kind, but not without barriers
Were an easy target.
We had such fun.

I
Found love
In the face of our games
But now
I am alone.