How can I miss,
long for, lust
after skin I haven't
ever touched?

your touch
it ignites my bones
it leaves me breathless
it leaves a trail of love that I once had
and I hope it will come back

There are stars in the sky and laughter across my ears
I am smiling in my mind
So I am not prepared for the world to shatter around me
In one gasp of breath, black paint spills over all I see

My hands clutch to my core
Trying to stop the bleeding from a wound that never was there
The pain so complete, I must be dying
I'm endlessly dying

I would rip my heart from my own chest if that would stop the pain

When the world returns, I turn my eyes desperately to the stars
As if tethering myself to each one so they can't run away again
I tell myself
I could never give up this life under their watch

Please don't let the stars go out

My body burned
- a fire I'd never known.
The pools in my eyes
commanded me to swim,
my heart wished to lay down
beside him,
but instead I just drove.

Headlines that read
Missing Man From Mt Martha
circulated for days.

She told me he'd often spoke of running away,
and her love for him clung fiercely to the fairytale
in vain.
Perhaps we should have known better,
but the tales fooled us.
Prince Charming will save the maiden
but who is going to save him?

The floors caught me
as I collapsed under
the weight of a phone call.

They found him
in romantic slumber
among the forest -
a tree and his throat
playing tug of war
with a length of rope.
It's hard to say
who really won.

The chaple was too small
to cradle all who loved him.
Red work shirts lined the doorway
like poppies.
Friends wore top hats
embellished with ribbons
and sunflowers.
Sisters consoled their grief
in suits and coloured bow ties.
An old music teacher played a violin,
so haunting and beautiful.

I've never known grief.
Memories of his smile
and hazy nights in his car
have seen my every sunrise since.
I see him in strangers
and passers by on the street
and my heart stops
in these fleeting moments
of illusion.
Resuscitated by reality,
they're gone as quickly
as they came.

I often think I should visit his grave,
place a flower on his tombstone
or just have a conversation.
I regret that only after he'd died
I realised
we might have understood each other
better than we knew.

The waiting girl had leather boots studded with her payment of lavish jewels
Blood red in the dead of the night from all those daring dead fools
She entered the bar amongst the dancing and shouted at all the ghouls
Though what she said did not shield her from the hellish banshee
She saw her target amongst the prostitutes dripping with foreign ecstasy
She held her .44 and let him lie in death's dark sea

Gasp...
It was a sucker punch.
One that leaves you winded and frozen.
And you struggle to get out of this malfunction...
Trying to find that foothold that would take you to the next breath.

Quickening of the heartbeat...
Almost instantaneous.
Thumps so loud and hard you could hear them in your ears.

Disbelief...
You never saw it coming.
You weren't ready.
You replay it again and again.
Like a bad movie stuck on repeat.

Denial...
It never happened.
Yeah...
Nothing happened.

On a distant summer
a girl walked four miles
to sell fruits at the haat
and mowed by the May heat
fell asleep on a patch of concrete.

The noon dusts played around her
sleep little girl rest your feet
the winds will play you a song
refresh you with dreams so sweet
the walk back home won't be long.

The sun had slid the shadows grown
when opened her dream dazed eyes
there she was at the haat all alone
her fruits in the basket had dried.

She had dreamed a round dime
clutched in her palm
colored gold with her wish

she had slept thru the time
and when the winds calmed
held nothing to buy home a fish.

Time has flown those dusts far away
years have grown her wise
yet when the winds blow lonely in May
her tears she cannot disguise.