I awoke that morning, down on my luck in an endless game of gratitude, thanking one misery from releasing me from another.On a sofa where my knees suffered, my arm ached, but at least I had shelter and the possibility of survival if laughed at every joke and made out we were a team and I wasn't just using my weird face or conversation to keep my host entertained.

It wasn't a date, I was reaching and crawling out of that environment and hoping for a real person to talk to, a conversation maybe someone who could see me outside of who I appeared to be.

I underestimated the experience, I had never  in my whole life been hit to the point I could buckle or fall to my knees. I saw her.

She had a car which meant she had power, and control over distance sounds silly now but then she seemed like a goddess. She appeared from it like a oiled gear angular but straight up, she had black hair (I was always a sucker for black hair) but she did something no one had done before she made me feel like I had been hit by a bullet. I automatically became nervous. I thought I could be charming, apparently this helpful tool disappears when you see someone you instantly fall in love with.

I once saw a woman
old as she was young
Her spine jutted out like a plastic comb
She wore her skin like she had draped it gently
Her face was a swarm of birds
Moving like a murmur under her hair
I searched for her eyes
But they weren’t there
She left them on the face of a man
She had once loved so long ago
Her hands were grasping
Trying to hold the remnants of her time
She was digging her heels in
She was digging her nails in
Only to make holes in all she had left
I heard she died later that winter
That old woman

I saw you
You think I wasn’t looking but I was
Staring as you gracefully weaved words through the air
I saw the fullness of your mouth as your secrets spilled forth
Landing like Taraxacum seeds on your skin, falling to the floor
I ran after you seizing them up and kept every one pressed to my chest
And pushed them one by one into my heart
I slipped into your shadow and quietly kept pace to avoid your detection
Picking up the pebbles from your dreams
Grasping at the feathers on your breeze
I waited there until you were asleep
Only then did I make myself known
Let you see my silhouette
Standing in front of you with my arms full
Asking you to love me.

She lived in a cupboard under the stars
Crouched and curled, laid out like the twisting Milky Way
Twinkling and breathing and playfully sighing to herself
Her fingers drew clouds in the rotting wood
And knew all of their names
She passed the time by piercing holes in the sky
And seducing the moon with whispers, epithets and subtle gestures
She drew secrets from passing birds
Teasing them out like threadworms
Softly winding them around her hair
Putting them to her ear to listen
Before swallowing each morsel
Drawing her hands down on to her lap
Unpicking her scars
To find a hiding place
For 12 years she remained there
Until there came a voice at the door