I do not love you because you are funny,
or kind.
Or because you're beautiful.
It's not because when we first met you were reading Virginia Wolf,
and when you looked at me
I saw emerald and amber in your eyes.
Your hands are like pebbles,
worn smooth by the sea,
but that is not why I love you.
My heart doesn't skip at the thought of you
because you kiss the back of my neck
just before sleep
takes me.
Not even because you
make the best brownies
ever.
I love you
because you,
are you.
And I am me.

I found myself, trying to be,
a little bit like you.
I don't know why.
Maybe I just realized that I wanted to be
a little bit like you.
The world was such a happy place,
whenever you were near.
I'd love to be able to fill a space,
with the joy you did.
For all conflict, you could erase,
just by smiling.
I wish that I - poor, dreary and
corner-of-the-party-bound
me.-
could be like that.
To have such beauty,
and such grace.
To really be like sunshine,
on a rainy day.

I never,
never,
meant to hurt you,
and then the door
slammed shut
behind you.

How the Sun and Moon,
have spent so long
together,
keeping their rhythm,
Without ever screaming,
or shouting.

Water runs over stone,
it refines,
fluid, burbling brooks
run over
and never does the age old rock
refuse to be perfected.

She dances,
endlessly, outside
of time, parallel to us,
and he watches,
adoring gaze,
never bored of how she moves.

And I marvel
at that, complete love,
but I do not envy,
for we might scream and shout,
and slam doors,

but the light
at the end  
of the tunnel
will always be you,
and it's not exactly functional
but it's there.

But the way you sleep
taut, ready to
pounce.
Your spine, it curves and sits,
when you twist your hips.
How you wipe a crumb,
from the corner of your lips
makes me.
When you cry it makes me sick,
grow a pair,
when you kiss the inside of my thigh,
when you hold
my waist and your thumb strokes.
I want you.
Your voice rumbles like kitten thunder
when it says "I'm leaving."
Well leave then.
If he wants me to say that I
love him.
He can make me.
But then you mummer in my
listening ear
something.
That I cannot remember
It's elemental, this
sumptuous, self-indulgent, sweating of lovers,
In a second I see your gorgeous eyes
and I remember.
You are every girl's dream,
and for that I don't
love you.
Go **** yourself.
Sell the courtyard flat in London, Lyon, Kathmandu.
Sing Fleetwood Mac in an emptying bar.
I refract your love to other women.
£4.50 for a pasta salad, a rip off.
Rip it off, quick, the plaster on your daughter's finger.
Now there's arthritis in my fingers
I drop the phone
Bend over
to get it
come back up
too fast
head-rush
startlingly
remember your mouth on my breast.
But how your shoulders looked in the rain.
A hand on my belly as we slept.
See a leather cord with a shark's tooth on it,
a battered rucksack.
The smell of decaying leaves,
long after the end of Summer,
Summer, the time for lovers.
We were lovers without the time to
love.
So what's the knock-out,
abstract line at the end?
The quote that teenagers will put on their walls.
Where is the profanity?
Is it not there?
Or do I just fail to see it?
Should I say
after it all
that I loved you?
A burnt out cigarette **** in a glass of cheap red wine.

When I meet him again,
when I rush into his arms,
I'll whisper in,
his ear.

Not that I love him,
although it may be true,
it wouldn't carry,
weight.

Not that I missed him,
I did, everyday,
but he already
knows.

Not that I will always be there,
by his side, I will stay,
but that is granted
given.

I will say to his soul,
"I know you."
He might turn, and ask
is that really
true?

Not a doubt,
I know him, better,
than he knows
himself.

Surer than,
the
day
is long.

a friend of mine
said i should stop

and i said that was silly

know your limits
said she to i

and i said that was boring

i'll drink all i want
and then i shall stop

so she said that was stupid

but the i drank until i
slid onto the floor

and then i said time for home

but when i stood up
i fell back down

and i said i was fine

she said to me
that i should stop

and i said that was best

but i cannot stop
until i forget

and that's all i remember

If I tell you a secret,
will you hold your tongue?

Hold it, like you hold your child,
a close and loving embrace.
You should love your tongue,
for it lets you speak.

Your tongue, is how you speak your mind,
and through your mind you speak the truth,
and there is nothing more beautiful

than the truth.

But there will be people who
won't want you to reveal the reality.
They might tell you to hold
you tongue.

But you were born to speak.

Love you tongue,
your right to shout from rooftops.
Love it, but don't you dare
restrain it.

Hold it for tact, but if injustice
requires you to zip it
so it can continue.

Don't you dare,
push it out through your teeth
to make a sound,
a scream.

Love your tongue,
but know, that it has to move.

Peace calls me,
                        so goodnight, fears
                                                        I once had.
                                                                           I will sleep easy tonight.