The first time I went down on a girl she had the delicate flavour of bergamot.
I was so addicted to her I could brew in her imperfections,
dream of sugar mice in her navel.
she had given me the most dangerous sweet tooth for the freckle on her forehead and her bergamot scented bed.

Tracing the crack on the right hand corner of my mouth
I left her kiss behind, a ***** secret
fading like the silhouette of a flower at sunset,
darkness closing in around my naked body
that was a canvas I refused to believe was still art.

The second time I learnt not to stay too long,
to leave my socks on
to escape out that 4 minute exit  window
so I don’t infuse my heart in this metaphor we call love
I wasn’t strong enough for this weight
upon my shoulders to remain
the perfect convent school girl I was taught to be


so I begun to shrink my body
to fit in the comfort of a waistcoat pocket
amongst demin in a closed closet.
People begun to notice the cage I kept my heart in was growing bigger,
or I was growing smaller,
trying to break free from beneath my skin,
stretching it thin so you can trace the lines
I’d learnt to repeat: do not eat. Do not eat.
Do not let anyone in.
Do not let anything in.
There is nothing worse than letting someone see what you look like on the inside

you cannot make love disappear on command
like you can with a one night stand,
you cannot control sexuality like you can control your calorie intake,
restrict your appetite for more of her taste, give yourself space,
shrink yourself to give yourself more space to waste
and keep looking for love in all the wrong places
as one day your prince will come.

Keep looking
In the company of men, in the bottom of a bottle
blur your eyes so you can no longer recognise
who it is who lies beside you
who that person is in the looking glass,
there is no reflection in the mirror when you
starve yourself thinner and thinner
become the skeleton in your closet
to hang the girl they condemn and call a sinner
but a different kind of hourglass will count
down to 6, not the size, but how many feet
you will be in the ground.
When they open the closet door,
Your bones will no longer be there to be found..

No one tells you can’t read love like the fairy tales beneath your bed.
that your prince may wear a dress and listen to Nirvana,
the heart has no pronoun for a reason
love is not an etchasketch you can shake to change,
it is a kaleidoscope of every colour of the rainbow
with hundreds of different variations
an each one is beautiful


The sixth time I went down on a girl I told her I couldn’t stay long.
That I had to wash my hair, purge myself of her sweet touch.she held out her hand l
like a compass pointing north to home
and said every person has their own northern star
even stars fall.
No one asks them who they are falling for.
Instead we hold out our hands to catch them
And say come as you are.