“Look at the state of you.”

Mum joins me in the bathroom,
Lays down next to me
And holds my hand.

I cry,
Unable to move.
My insides clenching,
churning,
cramping,
eating away at itself.
Blood dripping down my leg,
The sign of womanhood
Apparently.


Would it be too big headed
To compare my
Monthly pain with the state
Of the planet
Or the governments
Of various countries?
I could be so egotistical
That I say that we’re all
Laying next to a screaming
Figure, laying on a bathroom floor.

I won’t be a ***** about it,
So I’ll just imply it.

watch you go
cherry-red motor
dots that look painted on

no bigger than a fingertip
contact lens bonnet
millimetre-thin wires for legs

shuffle not scuttle
climbing the stem
before you open up

unfurl acetate wings
brisk flicker into
a speck against the sky

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Want to know a secret?
I’ll give you a clue.

The grass is green,
My cheeks are pink,
I’ve spent weeks of my life,
Spilling this ink.

This cat is grey
And the sun is yellow,
The thirty poems I wrote about you
Are not all too mellow.

Violets are blue
And roses are red,
When you left me
I wished I was dead.

How long ago does something have
To be, to be considered
Nostalgia worthy?

I miss friends I have lost contact with,
Relationships that fizzled out.
But if they were only weeks ago,
Do they count?

Or is nostalgia reserved for events
Of years gone by?
Being homesick for something
Long left behind.

Wistful, yearning, sentimental.
Seeing something through
Rose tinted glasses.
Only seeing the good,
And not the reason you left it behind.

The sun streams through the patio doors and
I watch a spider building its web outside the window above the sink,
I heard birdsong, I count three different ones
(I’m no david attenborough, I don’t know what they are).

A shadow cuts across the light as a bird flies to settle on the roof and the man painting our hallway
Leaves,

“You’ll have some peace this afternoon.”
He says halfway out the door.
I smile. Yes, peace.
Thinking everything and nothing at the same time,
But not feeling the heavy weight of sadness that
Nestles in my chest more days than not.
Peace.
I guess my mum was right,
I do feel better when it’s sunny.
Must be the vitamin d.

I wouldn’t call us a party.
It was at the beginning,
But not any more.
You don’t acknowledge my
Existence any more,
But never mind.
There’s always another party,
Always an excuse to dance.

when they put it to sleep
   I am already halfway home
or already home
   my head heavy
with that strange social buzz
   that comes from
severing myself from shindigs
   but making an exception
minds skewed with alcohol
   a barefoot teen Fosbury-flopping
over a mate’s dad’s armchair

   before too long
I’ll think of their foot-long children
   caterwauling at 3am
the desk-job half-full cup
   of cheap coffee
our greetings infrequent
  dialogue Wyoming-sparse
say how I should’ve told you
   six mid-Decembers ago
my days a haze of disfluencies
   TV repeats and cold callers

Your body is a temple, a vessel to worship,
Pray and make offerings to.
But temples soon become ruins
When people neglect them
And move on.

My body isn’t a temple,
I don’t like that metaphor,
but if it was it would be a ruin
With scars and broken bones and stretch marks and blemishes.
I tend to neglect her, I don’t worship her often enough.
My body isn’t quite like a haunted house, but she does echo with
the touches of past loves and current interests.
She isn’t cursed, even though I have cursed at her for growing too much
or not enough.
She is a friend, most of the time.

told us it would happen
didn’t believe them

our biggest capitulation
end of civilization

last orange blink
final carpet of stars

Asia first
then the rest

toppling dominoes
stripped streets

lead-less dogs
and hollow televisions

kick your history
to the kerb

man-made oven
own fault

must be time
to update my status

space between adult   more adult
the unmarried   and married
trundle through mid-twenties
roads slobbered with snow
fog-licked windows
friends skidding
into what is expected of us

invitations in the mail
like tiny sirens
reminders
of that perennial question
if not now when
is it your turn yet