I didn’t think it was possible to ****
a cactus, but I have.
Cactus corpse lies on the
drooping shelf
the spikes, once full of stabs and stings,
now limp and lifeless
(but scars on my fingers
prove it did cut me)
even the lamp misses the cactus’ prickly
presence, refusing to raise its head
rusty radiator moans loudly,
mourning the loss
I don’t think I’ll ever keep a plant again.
disappointment of the death
has left a longer-lasting mark than
scars on my fingers and
I can't bring myself to move
its corpse from the lonely old shelf

I shove my fist down my throat to stop butterflies spilling out,
spluttering under sticky toffee pudding sky

lines and lines of grass wave hairy heads, panicked to be plucked in
late May air - bare and dry, naked as paper.

We drink fizz to soften silence, look down at birds chasing their shadows.
Ice on pinking thighs

I lick my lips to hide frantic flapping wings,
clouds gather as marshmallows, bodies of grass rise to look.

tongue tickled by flutters, I drink more to drown the butterflies.
Let them digest into crawling caterpillar crumbs in my stomach’s pit

Can I be the poem,
not the poet—
not the hands that shape the lines,
but the breath within them?

I wonder if I could live
inside the pauses—
where the meaning stretches,
but doesn’t need to explain itself.

Let me be the ink,
not the pen but the flow—
without the pressure to know where it shall go,
or why it curves here and stops there.

Can't I just exist in the margins,
in the spaces left open,
just being the poem,
not the poet?

Nobody can truly know
how when the nights comes and the moon rises high in the sky,
I close my eyes, excited to take off to the land of dreams,
because I know you will be there.
Waiting for me,
smiling at me,
sitting on a bench in the park with me.
Nobody can truly know,
how immensely happy I am in those non-existent moments.
But they exist, they really do.
Just not here,
not in this cold world.