yesterday,
jesus walked past me
no salvation -
called me weak,
spat in my face
red
     w
        ine tinted my skin
dribbled from my lips
if ‘I could change
the way she saw us
you wouldn’t wonder why
she doesn’t save
those who have
been deserted’

I heard rumours —
everybody gossips,
you were all that I believe.

Keep me wanting more,
tell your truth —
everything gets blurry,
I know I'm addicted
to you.

I’m right where you want me —
I’m young and your precious.

Straight from
the cross on your wrist
to the scars on mine.
This is to familiar
to my past,
you know it runs in my mind
that I spent half
my life living
in yours.

my day -
no, summers day,
lay cloacked in
my fog

thick and veiling
there's distant screams,
tears from another
and
the smell of
drugs - just lit.

is this how we
mourn our
violence?

I wonder
what secrets
strangers hold
in their hearts -

did he hold them
in his arms and
carry you off
the cliff too?

Or did he lay
you in bed
and cover you
with sheets?

Letting someone touch me
is like dancing with the devil.

The way I flinch
whenever someone
goes to touch
me

or the way
I have to try and train my
brain that the
boy that is holding me
at night now isn’t trying
to choke me when he
moves his hand around
my face -
all reminds of a
duet dance the stumbling
and passion.


Touching me
in the slightest is like
balancing on our toes to tango
and I hate
that my past still haunts me to this
day and I think that everyone in my
room with an outstretched hand has
a gun behind their back and
that at any moment a
sweet encounter
could be something else.

Something
terrifying,
a reminder of why
I don’t trust guys
and why I’m so desensitised
to the violence - why
don’t my eyes close and
let me snooze or drift into a
place where I cannot be hurt?

I am an adult
that is
learning to trust and to love
from the start again -
learning the basics
of human connection and
communication and

sometimes I wish you
could see through my eyes
just to realise
how dark the other side
really is.

You texted me the other day
my phone lit up and
despite there nothing special
set about your ringtone
or about the vibration pattern
attached to your number -
I knew it was you.

Now I’m
chatting with my therapist
about small talk,
tequila, religion
what you mean when
you say you’re ‘over things’
despite having left me months ago.

I leave letters to you attached to
my poems and my work
I doubt you’ll read them -
we haven’t written in a while.

I know it’s wrong -
inviting you over,
but you’ll come to my door and
you can come in quickly before
the people upstairs realise
there’s an unwelcome guest.

I’ll always find myself
tangled in your path,
our lines are forever connected and
our tangled limbs will always
outweigh the mixed messages
in-between my own lines.

I,
have spent  
the last  
three hours  
crying.

My eyes sting
and my entire
face feels like
this dull yet
numb pain
that I couldn’t
compare to anything
other than a gunshot wound.  

Each time my  
heart beats without you it
sounds like a loud
boom.

Maybe because
there’s a
hole in my heart
that I try to fill
with memories of
things that I did for you,
all the compassion
and trust you placed in me.

All the times
I got to hold you,
feel your heartbeat against mine,
see you take each breath and
relax into me.

There are
memories we
have that I  
will never forget.
Each memory
placed in a tear
which I’ll keep
in a little glass bottle
with your name written on it.

I wish your
last memories
were never filled with pain
that you could have been  
graced with dignity not
suffering - I
wish I could have helped you.

Maybe if I looked  
into the warning signs,
read a little more online,
maybe if I looked you and
cared for you just
a little bit more -

I wouldn’t
have to carve your  
name  
into
a stone.