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.

Out the door and on the street
She waits
With impatient lips.
Hands on hips.
Smiling eyes,
Sweet candy
Wrapper tacked to bottom of bright red heel.
Nobody looks at the sky.
What need is there to hide from clouds?
Rain can only wash tears and fears away.
This is a jubilant day,
Flat foot.
Coward.
How many friends do you have left?
Some are gone to pasture in fields,
Some are posturing and misunderstand.
It's not your fault.
Listen to the brass band and her voice as she calls you down,
And into the light,
Where you can become once again what you always have been,
An every day hero.
Loud Father to your children,
Proud Husband to your wife.

Fold your hand into mine
And let me see your eyes.

I don't want to look.

In my past, there is a man
Who would have loved this kind of joy.

I don't want to know you.

Allow me to join you as you cry,
I know what it is to lose something cocoon safe, crimson love.

I don't want to feel a thing.

I want to see you smile now,
I want to know you can.

I don't want you to be unhappy.

I was happy once, but I was a fool
And now I foolishly thought I could be happy, with a compromise.

I don't want to realise that you are a disappointment.

Please, please, my steady love, come back and see that I've grown up!
I can do this now! So please, please come do this with me?

I do not love one half of her; I do not love her father.

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.

I am not forgiving -
I am not to be trifled with -
I am not a fool,
And I am not about to fall
For your watery smiles
As you make yourself the victim
In the aftermath
Of the ****** mess
You made of my head.

Rarely am I ever,
But in this I am innocent,
And I will not stoop to your level,
But neither will I raise you to mine.

I hate you.
And I think I always will;
Because how can I love the bullet
In the guise of a friend
That exposed my thoughts
And my fears
And my worries
To the open air
And its pigeons
For ridicule?

This was not a two sided thing.
This was a trick coin
That showed your two faces.

So don't you dare throw forgive and forget in my face,
When a minute ago, you were flinging ****.

She calls you by your full name.

Sounds **** from her lips.

Not like honey; your name is the buzzing of the bees that make it and when I say it

My lips tingle.

But you'll never know.

I danced with the other girls,
And you watched my feet,
I saw you in the wings.

Your eyes were dark as my knees caught the light.
Spin, reach, drop.

Get up, carry on going if you have the strength to, girl.

My hips catch the fabric of the shift.
Swaying, rolling like the sickness growing.

My waist is small but my backbone strong.

This dress is not for you,
This love song is not for you.

It's all been staged.
Necks stretch,
Heads roll.

And I leave the floor,
Feet sure.

I don't run,
But you do.

We've played this out before.

I see, you are the full stop.
You.
Not a semi colon;
You
Sheer things
Off
And don't give me a chance
To elaborate
To explain.
Hope.
It's the word that came
Before you.
But
Everything comes before you
Now.
Pushing daisies
Impossible flowers
Left
To rot,
I'll collect them all.
I will wrap them up and show you
Something
Good can come
Although
Budding Spring might be over.
Although that season is growing
Old
We two, still, are
Young.
You have enough
Life
In your hands,
Green fingers,
To carry our story
On.

This crumbles like
The topping of
Apples.
Apples baked with so much heat and potential.

Children and sugar - one on the same.
Sweet, but too much in this creation.

Marriage was
Dessert to life
But no crumbs are left;

Consumed by young greedy faces.

I can feel a storm approaching.
It comes in the guise of a lover's lies;
Favours bought and friendships diced.

But I do not hate him. That much I know. I  am not making you choose.

But I DO hate, and I hate with a passion;
That soft-spoken pillow talk holds greater weight than the anguish you know I've drowned in -
That you would put me through it again because your lover holds your hands
And exaggerates.

I am cold. And my tears are the colour of moonlight.

This is the first
Time I've been out of love
In years.

It's odd.

I'm clinging to heartbreak; I find
I am
Thinking of your lovely hands, and how I miss them:
Your shallow sleep-breathing
And your stubble in the evening.

I'm pinching myself in places that you kissed me,
Wanting to feel the wanting
You stirred inside my body.

Needing to remember;
I conjure up your laugh -
But it's more alive than you ever were -

And in death this romance seems to be sweeter.

And in life, in truth, it was all just so much simpler.

To say that I am

Broken

Would imply that there is
Something left
To fix.

And pain is nothing really.
Nobody feels it except for you.
Therefore it can't possibly exist
Right?

I'm so confused.
There's a gun to my head
And it leaves kiss-shaped indents
And I'm bruised black and blue.

In a coma.
Or something like that.

I feel privileged to know that you snore.
And that if
I nudge your cheek with my nose
You stop
And squeeze me close -
Crack my spine
And I love that feeling.
And the best thing is
That you don't even know you give me chills.
It takes a talented soul to thrill me when sleeping.

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.

Tempt me

If you can.

If your eyes sparkle,
If you're 6ft2
If your eyes are brown

Tempt me.

Dare me to see you for you, and not for being exactly like

That six foot and two inches of absolute chaos
Like that boy who never takes no for an answer and is never honest and
Doesn't know how to be functional.

It never works.
You all look the same.

And I don't like boys with blue eyes, green,
And anything in between.

How I imagine you to be
Is the end of the world
Too terrible of a promise to believe.
I know
You will be a splash of ink on snow
Sizzling like the rain on a summer's stone
And the antithesis of me.
I fear
That I will fear you
As a fish might fear a drought
As a bird may loathe the lightening:
My curse is you.
You, who's love will strike me down.

Father is
The strength of the tea he drinks-
He shrinks with age, but it is not evaporation.
I call it distilling.

Mother is
The rain burrowed deep –
Giving life, stripping away the moss that covers the truth of my world.
Inescapable. I cannot live without her.

Brother is
The boy who breaks my heart
More than the one who has my heart.
Come home, be done with your wicked games.
Let your pulse calm as we drink strong tea,
And listen to the rain.

I wish I could swim in your eyes.
They are the colour of
Deceptively deep lakes.

I sailed in one like them once
The waves lapped at my boat
And the water was cold
And I felt so small.

I wish I could dive down
Find sunken secrets
And lost treasures like
Rings and children's toys.

What I want more than anything
Is to find no ice
To see that you are thawed through
To not be barbed by insults
That I know will melt away
To join the rest of the lake
And drown me, too.

What I want is
For you to fish me out
And tell me it's all a waste of time
To save my breath
Or lose it.

I'm well aware
No pleas, no tears,
Nothing
Could have stopped your life from drifting away
Through the wounds
Like gas out of a balloon.
Would it be wrong to compare your soul to helium?
You were always so high.

You were the death of me
I
Have nothing left.
I see a lover with his bonita and I suffer  
With regret
Because
Because of reasons I can't explain.

Come to Paris with me.
Let's stick to our plans.
But please, can it mean what Paris means?

Can it mean that this time
My parents will approve
And we can dance in sunlight,
And dip into the shadow of the Notre Dame,
Get married there, if they'll let us,
Because I'd like that very much.

My love, we'd be so far removed
Nobody would ever have to know
And if you'd so wish it
You'd never have to see my face again
In midnight, or alone.

And if you don't come, can't come, or simply won't,
Out of fear of the unknown
Please say I can think of you
For every second of every day,
Because Paris is calling me.
And I have to get out of this tomb.

And Paris is shining like a beacon of light
And I want to get lost in its secrets,
And I want to taste its delights,
So please, if you don't come, can't come, or simply won't,
Paris, be a boy.

This is our little corner of the earth
Right at the edge of the world.
Fall off,
Fall off, you tell me
There's no going back once you do.

Find me in the recesses of your mind
Dust me off and let me shine
I want to breathe
I want to breed
Create little seeds of love in your heart.
I'm not loveless, I never was
I felt each barb deep in my flesh
Like each barb deep in my flesh.
It hurt when you called me cold
And alone
Because I was
Because it's what you thought
Confident in what you knew
Of a person whom was only ever in love with you.

She steals my life, a lot.

She rings my mum, talks to her about stuff I said I would.

Leads that same woman past me and him

To introduce her to her flavour of the month

Though I'm in the fledgling steps of love.

She calls at my house

And sleeps in my room

She wears my clothes

And raves about me about how little I do for her

As she complains about how little she's done in life.

I've given her everything,

This friend,

And she still finds stuff to take.

Not all of these monsters
Who prowl the night
With blood shot eyes
Are to be feared.

Some monsters,
When they love you,
Keep their teeth sharp
For the sole reason of keeping you safe.

And when you grow to love a monster,
You learn to love them in the night time too.

Blood drips daily.

I say I feel nothing
Don't want to draw attention
From those who suffer openly.

I am strong, but I am weak,
And I can't admit defeat.
Not to you, whose face is so **** smug,
All the time.

Let me be the bite that tears your flesh
And let me cry acidic love,
It will cauterise me, eventually.

I'm coming for you.
We have many years left to live,
You and I.

Unless you end it now.
Coward.

I can't figure it out right now, let's just leave it,

I say.

But what about tomorrow?*

I think.

When we're ninety,

What then?

Because I want to be with you,

I can admit.

I want snowy days by the fireplace, and sonograms and rings

I want your future, I'll need you in the morning

Some day.

But right now

I'm sorry,

Love is a foreign thing.

I hope you die lonely
Without any children.

I want to pack my life in a rucksack
And leave it behind, so I can really travel light.

I hope your wife leaves you
For your brother, like I didn't have the guts to do.

I hope that one day I will be able to
Get the first choice, instead of your left overs.

I wish you don't ever come back to our classes
So people won't think I'm evil.

I stole a shell out of your garden
And gave it to my best friend. We hate each other.

I have decided that I don't need this new thing

Called hope.

It's fine, pretty, petite, fiery friend, you may have

My hope.

Isn't he lovely? Please treat him well. I think I would have.

I hope I would have.

But we shall never know now, because you played your hand so well.

I can only hope you'll listen to my warning next time.

If there is a next time.

I hope there will be.

Because one day, I won't be quite so content with the memories of those

Who stripped me of hope.

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.

How can you tell
Heaven from Hell
When it's an Angel leading you  
To the precipice?
When you've sold your soul
For wings to fly
And you seem to have a halo,
Are you an saint
Or are you a sinner,
And is your crown
Just a trick of the light?

Large actions
To fill the large space
In my heart.

It's not working.

It drips by, life.
Steady and constant and I cannot escape.
It's rusty and murky
and leaves behind lime scale
And I scrape and I scrape
But nothing is ever clean.
I have my good moments,
When light hits the surface just right
And I catch my reflection
And I forget what's beneath.
But it's always there, waiting.
And if it could freeze, like ice,
I would just walk over it
And pick myself up whenever I'd slip,
But it won't, and I'm drowning
And the water tastes foul
And the air is no better
So I just want to sink
And sink
And see if I can find my feet again.

To love
To love
To love
It takes so much courage
And so much faith
In those who don't,
More often than not,
Deserve it.
And sometimes,
Faith
Is left entirely out of the deal
When cold nights
Are made warm
By a body
Who belongs to another girl.
Don't mistake me,
The body is male.
But I stole him
For a while.
Can't remember
If
I put his heart back.
Maybe we shall see.
Time will tell if the time
I spent wrapped in both
His arms
(Because I fit)
Has left tattoos on his skin
The way those hours have
Printed themselves on my
Flesh.

23:11
Kisses on my shoulder blade
23:12
Kisses on my  cheek
23:13
Kisses, so many, on my lips
Right now
Kisses moving closer to my heart.

To love
To love
To love
It doesn't take much
At all.

I know what I am
And despite what's in the mirror,
It isn't pretty.

I'm obsessive, I am compulsive,
If I hit one hand, I hit the other,
I dance through life symmetrically.

I call your heart to mine because
Everything works in twos
And when I realise that
You were only ever a part of my pattern,
That I didn't actually care for you at all,
I'll drop you, but I'll keep your heart.

Because I'd be lonely without it.

It's twisted, yes, I'll admit it.
I need the love of many to keep me content,
I like having different partners to turn to
To be beckoned to,
So that way if I lose a playing piece,
I'll always have one spare.