In all the time we’ve wandered,

spent landing from impossible heights;

dancing blind, in the dark, being fumbled and prodded

for feelings and requests,

the games we laugh at, wasted on self-confidence and

possession

I have much more than yours,

intoxicated on the thriving pulse of fearless flight,

we crash into opened arms,

not noticing the extent of the fall.


A wandering soul, I shall be.

Picking up sand on empty beaches,

spending time thinking of the footsteps,

surely imprinted on my trail I left behind.

You came and went.

And so you came and went.

Tumbling across my path,

like that cooling hot flush brought with salty ocean and rain.


Wandering past empty mountains,

looking over my shoulder to notice the

mortal statues I made of you,

and you,

and you,

my tended garden of people and places and things;

of darkness and light;

of scraped shells and glorious feathered wings;

of sickly love songs and hearts blazed;

of lonely nights waiting up for you,

and all the times you let me down.


Wandering alone and free,

the purple skies above offering sacred slumber.

I remain awake, watching stone eyes move

on me,

fixating on the bumps in the road,

tremors and falls in gentle dips unexpected

under my feet;

like you were.

Another came past, the smell of cut roses and

blushes minus a make-up brush;

shaking in the middle of your field of games,

playing rough and *****,

feeding ego and primal instincts,

bent backwards and underneath,

an empty canvas for marred drawing;

it was ****** while it lasted,

but I turned to stone long before

you came back on your knees.


And all the time I’ve wandered this lonely escape,

I come to wonder at all my marvels,

the things that made you fall faintly for me,

and shrines of you,

and you, and you.

Whether we were meant to collect an exhibition

of second best loves;

successive wilting romances burnt on scorching days.

Whether we were meant to learn by breaking hearts;

making cold remnants left to mildew in the past.


Whether we make do with second best,

as close to first yet farther still;

because we don’t know what best is.

We know when it tumbles down,

like a broken house,

but to see it gone is much too late.

Safer to say yes to second best,

than risk the cold wandering left for us alone.


In all the times we’ve spent wandering.

And I’m still wandering.

Empty beaches and purple skies,

long past.

A warmth I can’t equate

to anything that

blossomed and I could touch as real

in my life to date.

Watching an ocean dance at twilight,

shifting and settling into myself;

a return home

after a long retreat.

Filled as much as one can,

living in a partly broken glass.



A warmth I can’t equate,

that smile that kept the streetlights,

still humming on their own,

late at night.

An absolute joy,

to see me,

that kept the sands still and made

the waves unafraid to keep crashing on.

The light brightening settling eyes,

on me,

like the happiest moment

of any day,

is when I’m right there,

walking along your way.

A warmth I can’t equate,

settled side by side

wrapped in fresh air and

twinkling planets high above,

breathing down a clear night,

on souls forever fixed

in an achingly sweet moment;

watching paths cross,

almost collide,

with words of love and loyalty,

grace, beauty, adoration, bliss,

transfixed on the glimmering promise

of single coloured roses

as gifts

for a sweet girl

you say

and a whimsical romanticism not dead.



A warmth I can’t equate,

how unearthly beautiful

you let me feel

in your eyes;

love professed on empty beaches,

showered attention on a

long-time lonely girl

you melted and folded

into a goddess.

Love professed

for a patched-up

lady singing melodies,

and holding herself together

with decisions scorching her back,

confused nettles of feelings and

obligations, allowances,

grievances and sadness

bearing a weight on her slender shoulders;

She’s a creature holding aloft all the

wonders and hearts of decisions left to face.



A warmth I can’t equate,

as I am

the protagonist always

failing to make the right decision,

lost and redeemed and burdened

in every instalment;

no one has made me feel as wondrous

and special,

in all the times I’ve had lovers sit before me.

But this protagonist,

has not had the greatest

trove of romances, nor the heart

to carry much more fears;

pieces are given away,

in every extended touch and heartbeat,

so please beware,

what’s left.



A warmth I can’t equate,

right now, lost in every state,

but hope I can at least reciprocate,

in some way after healing has mended

and stitched

and time has played it’s course to warm cold feet.

This lady is afraid,

of how quickly you might have fallen,

for all her wise, sad songs.

A sweet, unsettling fantasy made reality.



But she knows.

Of this warmth.

No one can really equate.

Tensions high,
like broken kite strings,
reaching further away,
escaping the empty earth
in your arms.

Creeping chatter,
pouring inky letters,
in runny messes
all over my hands,
feeling bruised by you;
the sting, the slap
as leaking words
drip drip drip
from your mouth,
the broken tap.

I’m tired.
I’m so tired of hearing
soft
whispered yearnings
scratching the back of your throat.
Desperation, loneliness?
You beg with the croon in your tone,
you play along like the gentle little
sweetling,
a songful, humming love,
all warm in cupped hands.

In all this time,
this achingly long time
I’ve played as your neat little trick;
the showman’s trusty pet,
small dove flying
as soon and only when you release me.
String caught up around my waist,
I’ll never fly too far.

As I walked away,
that night with the moon trailing my form,
and pooling in pillows cradled in my soft footsteps,
you watched my back
stretch lean and tall and
stand
away from you.
You looked back,
it was the moon shifting through my hair,
when I turned to notice
a head shake,
a blink in the empty settling air you left behind.

….Drip….drip….drip,
you leak all those notions I wished you
would one day say,
those heart-melting flatteries,
desirable admissions,
I’m the only one you want,
to keep you satisfied,
keep you going and touching and loving
and exploring and breaking,
until your other girl comes home.
You ask and plead and return,
lapping and licking in my arms,
wanting my form so bad again;
you cry for all the fun in the world,
but this time, it just can’t.

You’re just my broken tap.
You’d need to stop dripping ***** water one day.
You’d need to stop echoing around me at night,
cradling myself to keep my strength enough
to say no to what I wanted and got for so long.

But you’re just my delicate and lovely broken tap.
I’ll always love you somehow, and feel so dangerous,
intoxicating and breathtaking
as you made me so.
You showed me so.
But I can’t wait for you to cease on your own.
Pull me round with you, wait for you,
tossed like an empty drink because of you.

Maybe
I just need to let you
let me go.
Like I cried to let you go first.

I’m walking down a howling, windswept street;

an open avenue of untamed elements,

all icy scatter and driving push, pull,

forlorn crossed glances disguised at the last second

in a rush of slapping breeze,

pulled my face straight.


I’m walking down a street, peeking past corners,

wondering where you lead.

I walk and chase,

in the sharp, swollen bites of rain

rolling down my face and

pooling at my feet.


I’m walking down a street,

mind circling and picking over pieces of you.

In the furthest reaches, in the shade from awnings

of trampled, stampeded pavements,

I inch closer and escalate straight back.


I’m walking down a street, having an emotional affair with you;

my silky, sticky, sweetened crush;

a burn,

you make me cry.

You’re not a secret.

I’m stepping over city-clogged gutters and

***** grass;

having forays and majestic waking daydreams

with all those startling crisp images

of you and me

you

and

me

bundled together like twisted wires.

Using each other like immortal weeds.


I’m walking down a howling, windswept street,

where blue sky begins to play peek-a-boo

trying not to cry.

I leave myself unguarded and playing at wounds,

thinking of you again.


But walking down this street,

I know you are futile game,

a persevering sweat beneath the blankets at night.

I know you prove an attractive devil,

but these tears cool the heat, the lust.

And by being swept up in these winds with me,

maybe I’m your devil, in the end.

I get to swing,

swiftly,

under the swinging moon.

One leg up,

one leg down.

I get to be your mistress,

both legs up.


The second woman in the equation.


Called for the night,

set up a swinging cascade of

****-me ****-yous

one leg up, one leg down.

Mixed messages, forays booked,

you treat me like your nasty secret,

forbidden jewel,

plaything.


Swinging interplay of heated tosses, pushing and pulling,

thrilling rides and moves and rhythms;

twists and turns, arches and rolls;

lying flat and stepping over;

I hear you grunting, breathing hot wind in my ear

like the wild thing I unleashed and let escape at night,

in the shadows of the furniture and seeping shades of black

because I can only ***

with the lights turned of.

I can only be with you

when the lights are turned off.


Snap from when I saw you breathing me in

under the sunshine,

falling with me onto soft grass and

achingly tender dreams.

Speaking of swinging hearts,

minds against us like dripping stains,

negotiating and planning and hoping

and

wrapping sweet candy for a later date.

And wrapping me in soft cloth to take out

when you are close to tears,

to bliss,

too lonely to sit right,

too lost in waiting for another

that you are over missing, wanting in the nights

I’m not with you.


Being the girl that has to

say no to you,

is exhausting.

And when you tell me,

in your arms,

what I’m not.

It.

Hurts.


You gave me the ground,

when all I could do was tumble.

Swinging high,

swinging low,

I get to be your mistress,

both legs up.


Come the night-time charades,

the night-time little lies like flicking ***** crumbs,

feeling base and wasted in the dark,

waiting for the answer you keep struggling to say

with frozen lumps of words dug down deep

like kicking rocks into a dried up lake.

Hear hear!

the mind games are here.

Playing fool and playing god,

dealing cuts of upper hands and

bent up cards, abused in your fingers.

Guess what you played for me?

Played on me?


I’ve stopped feeling necessary,

when it’s feeding your ego like feeling feeding fire.

You need me under your skin and

it burns me up like gasoline.

Swinging round and round we go,

I don’t need this anymore,

however good I am and nice I am,

and wholesome I am

under the table,

for your stupid decisions and weakened by

my confident temptations.


Use you,

use you up and push

your taint out of my heated blood;

swinging the right side up,

I get to find my strength,

that elusive comfortable integrity,

self-honesty

feeling the blaze under my skin of strength

you didn’t expect I’d wield.


I get to swing,

swiftly,

under the swinging moon.

Alone, or not,

at least my legs will be stretched beneath me,

to catch me if I fall.

Who do I give my love to?
Can I return home? To something
lost, found, lost.
Myself, the barren cage,
Do you ever stop and breathe
in where I place your love
now?

Now. *** is so commercialised, objectified, underrated and understated;
fearful and lust-driven;
you want me to give it
to you so badly ,
I don’t even get to quote
‘we made love’
anymore.

Being close with you has taken on
the same meaning
as talking
on the phone
with you for an hour.

And sitting with you
I get to relive exactly where I’ve been before.
Only days ago.
Come full circle.
My flip-book details the same seconds of
unrequited confusion and unwanted heart to neglect.

Life is made up of cycles.
All it is
are cycles breeding more cycles;
circles one can choose to stop circling
to replace it with another.

It is the mixture that we cycle through;
the number of repeats,
the speed with which we tumble, and roll,
and dive head-first into an oblivion with all the colours
of artworks and fireworks, vibrancy and vitality.
The people who make up small cycles, large cycles,
the in-between lonely transition between new circles and loops
to contemplate, fight, submit under gentle lulls and thrilling loops,
that we educate ourselves to thrive upon, those that
we unlearn because of disappointment.

Each cycle doesn’t make it the
love affair it once was.
The friendship it could have been.
The tempting mirage of escape we were to each other.
The fuel and coursing fire that once was our motivation.
It doesn’t get simpler to manoeuvre the longer you cycle,
with you, without you, around you, for you, because of you,
too scared to lose you…
it’s still the same sticky sharp bend in the pipeline
the same foreplay of games;
‘now, who loves you most?’;
fingered silences’;
your heated chase and me always one step behind;
I have to branch off the loop
to prevent myself falling over you in the dark;
toxicity bubbling under surfaces red, raw,
swollen and teary;
I know my triggers.
My shotgun is you.
I know I feel something- to not feeling anything at all.

I may only be able to walk in circles,
but at least I can make them the right circles to trace.
I need that physical space; that walk-through
corridor in my head.

And now I get to sit with you,
realising I’ve been here all before,
not quite so long before.
Only days ago.
Come full circle.
And I think it’s time for me,
to be over your cycle.

On to the new circular track.
And the later loops and whirls I get to
embrace
on my rounds.
Well and truly,
over you.