in this new apartment that i have swept clean
i sit and wait for your arrival

i have my agitprop tucked under a mattress
like a teenage boy with his magazines,
i have taken the posters off my walls, turned
books backwards so their edges stick out
the yellowing pages like gaps in your teeth, hollow spaces
filled with the symphonic horror of my philosophy/photography/poetry collections;
triumphant: i have orchestrated a composition you will never comprehend.

you will inspect the blank, pockmarked walls,
ask semi-casually after a boyfriend, but i’ve bought traps to keep the pests out.
for all this distance between us,  
i’m still terrified i’ll end up with the phantom imprint of you
stuck to my walls like tacky, greying tape, the corners of thin paper
clinging to my fixtures, fixations, finishes, fetishes,
haunting consecrated grounds.

in this new apartment,
i sit and wait for your realisation that the bathroom door
opens on the wrong hinge
it breaks - and lets out a guttural howl
you stir inside me somewhere

all fathers want to be their eldest daughters.

your face sits in the curve
of my neck,
butterfly tendrils of sleep
clutching our figures
when you whisper
you have dancers feet, and
kiss my jawline
wrapping arm around leg and
pressing us together,
feet now arched only in passion, not poise

my dance teacher turns over in her grave.

sometimes when i visit nothing
i bring a sticky note
it just says i miss you
this dimension is otherwise empty

this is where things go
to get lost:
and they succeed often

i leave quickly and
remember to wave to the
nervous stranger who enters
holding too
a sticky note in his
trembling fingers, veins beating
like tiny butterfly wings beneath
paper skin

i make sure to close the
door behind me.

is your boyfriend a witch?
he seems nice, rather nice, the way
all strange young men are,
i spoke to him once- he left me
puzzled and poised, i spent the rest of
the day pondering impossibilities
so then tell me

is your boyfriend a witch? is he.
is he? it is fine if he is, but you must
tell me, because if he is
maybe then we would have
cold sharp metallic nature brushing our
house, maybe then we will see the
lights flicker on in an excuse for the
inexplicable, maybe then there would be some-
thing else in our lives besides the dull
and drudgery,

is your boyfriend a witch? if he is
i will open the garden
make sure there are mushrooms- is he friends
with the fair folk or does he make
the enemy out of them-
if he is a witch i will make special
cakes for halloween i imagine witches must
love halloween, for what a great time to be
as witchy as as possible, do witches
care if you find out they are witches-
most times

i think your boyfriend is a witch, i’ve watched
him slip from between walls and
from the ceiling to visit you, sometimes
when i see him leave he doesn't really
leave you, he seems at odds with the
neighbour’s cats-
and spirits;
is your boyfriend a witch?

for if he isn't,
i just don't know what
i’ll do
with all this lovely
witch’s brew

lover is the word used
for boys at midnights, for boys
who tumble into hushed bedrooms together with
moonlight/ lamplight, for boys who
whisper empty beautiful lies into the night,
playfully stroking hope and teenage-angst *******
into long hair, for the boys who
disappear under covers and into
dewy mornings before the post-
man arrives.

it is not a word for girls, not the
sweaty ones pushed up against
cool glass car windows, leaving their imprints,
handprints from sitting in the lot too long, not for girls
with legs tangled, breaths mingling, not for the girls
who sipped strawberry soda out of twirled glass straws
on that one autumn day, not for girls
who braid only flowers into another's hair,
not for girls who promise to return, not for the two
girls, voices low, giggling through soft-mouthed kisses,
not for girls who thought being a teenager was the
easiest thing if it meant this, always.

it is especially not a word
for girls who disappeared into the night
and beyond a street corner, who leave
behind shadows of lipstick and traces of oscar wilde quotes,
along with a note that they’ve finally
left for ‘summer church camp’.

come, come get your
daily dose: only twenty
sweet, sweet dollars and a
lifetime of guilt, no
more, no less

we buy it from your
shops, they promise us
more than they have to offer, but
we don't ask for refunds- go back only
to gobble, to pluck and to feast on
the words they told us,
too empty-

empty? you? but you have
so much, too much,
drop after drop we spooned
it down your throat to
wake you in the
freezing mornings: your nose is
red, but only as is the homeless
man’s blood on your
doorstep-

but if he wakes from the ashes
into pain to
offer it to you: pulling open his
trench-coat jacket, shady
side salesman/conman, remember
to shove it away, how do you dare
take from men that aren’t
yours- you must help him, just
today, just today, because maybe
tomorrow you can stop

stop, stop along
the street corner, sidestep
fallen bodies- there is the fallen yellow flyer,
come join us, join
the bleeding hearts club

people say
red
is the color of love.
it is
the dusty shade of roses,
the hue of lips painted,
the shimmer of her dress
when you dance.

but really,
red screams of
loneliness.
it is
the shade of poppies in an empty field,
the hue you see when she leaves you,
the shimmer of book covers
in an empty library.

orange,
is a better color.
it is
the shade of muted sunsets,
the hue of vibrant music,
the shimmer of a light burning
on a dark evening.

orange
makes up the embers of love,
burning bright and strong and fast
until it is
gone.

orange
is the color of love.

when the hands
on the clock move
to stop time
the earth becomes a wild thing,

when the humans slip
from their skin
imagine giants waking from
slumber:
(because they did, and they do)

when they shake the trees,
in the distance
here is the twist and scream
of faeries molting their
imprisonments:
they have come
for more blood
than we have left
in broken bones

when it takes hold,
raise the city
lurking beneath
cracked subway lines,
under the skin
and in the veins of the dreamers,
raise the city that sits
placid in the heads of thinkers,
that holds lies
woven between strangers
tying them together, taking us apart

when we raise the city
where
dark things slip through
small places
it will be
a kind world

you already know the world is ending,

so watch
as the sun
fragments into
holy red pieces:

it is the most beautiful thing.

(it is the last beautiful thing)

research shows
we carry trauma in our bodies

passed on from one
generation to another like a

treasured family heirloom;
slips metal into bones

we hold on to the pain
that killed our ancestors

silent stalker,
hovering on empty shelves,
behind glass bottles and
old pictures,
in the warm sleeve of a lover,
gone before it even
ever existed

she takes the spoon
pushes food and silence
down my throat
thick and slippery; her
smile as sweet, and
nearly as sickly

she is all things
bright and blustery
sheer impact force that
reckons with the world around her;

golden hour pictures
hazily filtered into
meaningful words that she
laces with daisies and poison;
painful to look at
when she is a blaze of light
fiery shards that lodge easily;
beautiful and
reckless and
lovely

trying to figure out how to
keep the memories
and traditions
alive in a room where
i find no religion
only the smiling faces of those
who once made me

two girls kissing,
their mouths pressed up together, in

open-mouthed laughter
the spaces filled with all the

things their parents wanted them to be
but could not, the

people they could have been
if there weren't gaping holes

somewhere between where their
intertwined hearts should have been

we will grow families
that don't need to heal
from our love

when i am gone
i will miss the body,
its aching and its cramps
shoulder blade clicking
warm fat resting on my hipbones,
smoothing out over my thighs.
i will miss this,
the struggle of a breath,
the sound of walking,
organs desperately fighting for life.

when i am gone
i will miss the
smell of the morning,
of the rain,
the feel of page against palm,
fingers dancing delicately over ink.
i will miss hugging,
pressing bodies close
to remind bones of what it is to
be together, to be born again.

when i am gone
i will miss the
feel of cool glass and metal
against my skin
my eyes will yearn for the sight it used to take
so easily
to see the storm clouds roll in from the horizon
and the lights flicker on in the
dusk-dim apartment complex.

when i am gone
i will miss singing,
offkey notes on
green stricken afternoons
and shimmery dusty dawn-lit moon nights:
voices are born to make art, make music,
make noise,
i will miss holding my mothers hand,
rough and cool,
speckled brown with years of loving me,
will miss when my dna
did not forget
what it is to be loyal
to itself

time is a battalion
crushing fossils and relics
as the troops march
ever onward

we are all soldiers in an
unknown war

a stray mortarboard lies
crumpled in a heap under
trampling feet
and the scent of
unchecked ambition

why did they teach you
to cut yourself
on their greed and their sorrow,

even the boys in the books
have pain
you want to swallow

there is a
rainbow
hidden in your skin;
never let
anyone
tell you otherwise,

for if you do,
you lose the
million
rainbows,
hidden in your bones

fall out of my bed
straight into yours

your lips are trembling
hold me close

if i told you
who means more
will you let my teardrops
walk out the door?

but when he returns,
he has freckles
on his cheeks i
never knew he had,
a tattoo he never
told me
about

it rained so hard
the water flooded my balcony
scooped me up and
cradled me in its waves
took me home;

my father and mother lie in their
watery graves
at the bottom of the
ocean

she is,
was,
a gymnast, i’ve never
watched her
but can imagine the tumbling
straight split lines
and tension in her taut arms
her form taking on all sorts of
shapes,
contortion artist,
twisting,
cut glass,
cut air,

and back when i used to draw,
i would have loved to
draw her,
snapshot her in the air
her moments of flight
record her infinite beauty
spiralling moments
that would go on
forever
on paper

as she moves to
soothe the heartache from
my eyes,
i wonder if i will ever
love my child
the same

i get obsessed
with the way my feet look in the reflection-
swing them back and forth
as i lie on my bed
like a high school girl from a
90s sitcom
there is bright light and a
colourful blanket but then
tell me;
why am i so sad

his body is nearly a universe:
nearly the universe,
his hands orbiting a
broken solar system,
his fingers the
planets and the stars,
his soul contains multitudes:
infinite galaxies,
possibilities mapped out
by his mouth;    
sun that leaves
trails of blazing fire
comforting in its warmth.

we form a
halo of skin and lips and bodies
the closest i am,
closest i have ever been
to a
higher realm

body becomes
my religion
i never get on my knees to
pray but
i beg him to
worship me at
my altar,

and when he finds me
oh,
when he finds me-

it is tattoos and
wet mouths pressed and
dry eyes;
it is laughing until we forget the joke,
and the night casts disapproving glances
upon our
two
******
souls;
it is the arch of two backs
bent over, straining with
twisted desire;
it is brown hair tasting of salt-
glowing golden in the rising
sunshine that cuts slats onto his
freckled skin;
it is kissing him when he tastes like
desperation and
hope,
and i can tell you that it is the
only time i have ever
felt anything remotely
like
faith

two girls,
one bubble,
too many words;
spilling over the edges of the
soapy sphere,
tinted glass can’t see out,
only in.

one way glass
on display for everyone
but only for themselves;
solitary stars in the
dark winter night
flecks of gold in
eyes the colour of tar,

talk about
birds of paradise
caged animals and caged people
golden potion
broken systems
party dresses and shoes
crowded earth:
too many words
one bubble
two girls.

battered kingdom falling to shards behind me
glass and cement pierce
wounds
through my soul
past glories fading rapidly
pick my way through the overgrown weeds
upturned throne on its side
crumbling staircase
kings tower in shambles
nothing but debris and rubble

i peer over the wasteland; the
streets i once ruled,  
the subjects, once mine, raise their
deadened eyes
only to watch me fall to the brittle earth,
they return their gaze to the barren ground,
away from the corpse bleeding black
nothing to see here, folks

you take my words
how do i write my poems
about your eyes
and how my heart stores
every time
you have looked at me in them
how they are desperate and
full of some twisted sadness
how
they’ve met mine across the dance floor, and
across a table of familiar strangers
filled with strange food, and
across a school bus bay crowded with
shrieks and laughter of ***** being thrown
where you lay on your back
tossed one to me, and
how every single time
i was
searching,  
searching
for something i don’t even know
really
exists,

but thats why scientists
look for bones:
to make skeletons.

stop making
eye contact
with me: you know
i never want to
look
away

shuttered lights from the cafe
window illuminate only
your eyes.

middle of the night,
the moonlight shifts your
dark hair
to silver.

hands too close to the
fire, turning your
skin translucent, green-blue
veins visible.

walking too far ahead of me,
feet safe in the darkness,
the space between us growing, and
glowing with starlight.

lamplight from the streets
chooses it's spotlight
on your fingers intertwined with
another's, your bodies in the
dark parts of the bed
we used to lie

we like broken boys
and not broken toys
patch them up with
daisies and kisses,
instead of medicine and visits

we like to fix up their clothes
and not their hearts
dye their hair at the ends
without covering up their scars

we like to ride their broad shoulders
not their torrential waves
sing songs about heartbreak
not make sure it never rains
plant flowers and trees around their heads
not roots and strength around their beds

we like to hurt them
before they hurt themselves
kick the boy in
punch him,
hurt him
to fix him

when you asked me,
laughing
who i wanted to kiss-
i should have said
you
and leaned in,
and done it.

we dance like there is
poetry floating above us, like
frail glass spun shattering figures
rough and chipped and so,
so beautiful, like
we were pulled apart and
put ourselves back together, like
we are 21 and young and
in love;

we dance like the whole world stands
beyond the glass doors, like
we are safe from all the
sad, lonely, hungry desperate
anger, like
we are small enough to
keep our noses to the sky
tiptoe and almost,
almost reach it, like
we have all our innocence still
stored away in little plastic banks
in the toy aisle, like
the one-way ticket to
sorrow and beer, death and cigarette smoke
nicotine-stained hands and black stained heart
has not yet been handed
to every child grown too fast;

we dance like
we are young enough to have
pretend weddings and storybooks,
pretty plastic rhinestone crowns, like
we are young enough to
fall asleep next to a sunset in the family ford
and wake up after the sun has risen
in our beds, like
we are young enough to
never have to beg
dad to let us back in the house and
sister to
please, don't tell- like
we are young enough to
forget
that the crown means
king not queen, like
we are young enough to
think that the world is not yet
broken it is
so, so green-
like we have never seen flowers so
******* beautiful, like
we are young enough to dance when
everyone
is
watching