Cold hands warm heart they say.
Always clutching cold hands on warm nights;
being together yet feeling alone;
aroused, stimulated, distracted, absent-minded,
lost, perplexed,
all at the same time as focused,
like steel blades and the precision of knives.
You know what this is.
But you can’t ever outrun its fingers.
Can’t pull your throat out from under a choking hold.

Hiding is like allowing the wolf to catch your scent;
fighting is like battling a wave;
accepting is like russian roulette.
Are you daring enough to play?

‘Why are you crying over that?’
People said to me
in scolding tones and glacier eyes.

I can’t be this vulnerable; it’s spiky
and stinging and
rolling over hurdles backward.
Condense, squeeze it down so
you don’t have to swallow too hard.

Emotional vulnerability is feeling all those
spikes of emotions, all those acute,
mount everest’s climbed without warm clothes
allowing them to hit you full in the face,
being driven under the pull of a wave.

We feel these rides of our lives,
micro moments in days of episodes.
There is nothing like intimacy to completely throw you
off everything;
the superficial cover to fill out the empty spot.

We roll onwards in our spirals;
our cycles and roundabouts of fear and self-pity;
contempt follows us whilst
dusty, aged hope drives us.
I know my triggers.
I know the cycle I feed, I bleed into,
I run chased by myself,
branching into more cycles,
looping on each other in
disgusting order;
concentric whirls,
at alarming speed,
facing walled obstacles,
tackling nightmares hands bound up
waiting to see if someone can pull you up and out
or make you draw
the ugly patterns
of your own mind games
out in circles, broken lines
and scratches.

I was emotionally abandoned.
In a realm of angry, biting storms and
numbing head spins.
Knocked around by severe internal seasons,
wearing sweaters under hot sun,
or drowning in half-shirts under icy rain,
I can keep it away.
Don’t look.
Suppress.
Bite down on something hard
before you scream.

And then they burst in bright beautiful sparks;
feeling swept in delicious tastes,
explosive episodes,
rapturous warmth and synchronised heartbeats.
Painful glows and inspiring tornadoes;
destruction and recreation,
a chaotic peace and warm sweats,
stinging burns and hot tears
mixed with not-so-equal parts
of silken nights and glorious
wakeful dreaming.

'Of course you may hurt, of course you may cry.
Of course you can sing and laugh and ache, anything
you want to try.'

And this is why we feel.
Why we need to feel.
Why we love the slow smoulder of being caught up.
Caught up in emotions and their separate rides;
shifting speeds and tracks each new time
they crawl to our surface again.
Holding back is wasting precious passions;
it’s exhaustion you crave when everything else is
flat, blank, rigorous rigid routine and ripping open
empty boxes.

So you say I always have cold hands.
Cold hands warm heart they say.
This is the reason I love you.
This is the reason I wait for you,
to realise you love me too.
This is the reason I can only
hope
you make the right choice.
Not for me, for them, for anyone.
For you.
I don’t have a say anymore.
I never did.
I can’t speak, or help, or keep you warm anymore.
I can’t be your escapism.
I can’t be crack, dope, speed or any of your illicit nonsense.
I can’t be your forbidden fruit
in your late night feast;
creeping around, undercover lover,
giving you pleasure and happiness and smiles
locked under secrets and
silent words.
I’ll seethe and brood
underneath you, caged in the dark
shadow of your body
dreaming up it’s presence before I fall to sleep.

Cold hands warm heart they say.
Fuel my fire.
Keep my hands cold.

There are demons
on my boat.
Shhh
You’ll wake them and then I
won’t be able to look away from them.
It is an all too simple
contract; our deals
sealed in tears and thickened, old blood;
silences coating emotions,
covering sounds and words, and smiles and secret screams.
Shhh
You’ll wake them if you come near me.

There are demons
on my boat.
I steer my lonely ship onwards,
beneath the hesitant moon, and restless stars.
Bright, dark, bright, dark.
It’s still, a smooth mirror reflecting an endless sky;
I don’t disturb the empty ocean, unsettling in all its quiet rage.
Its hidden heart.
I am willed to follow my aimless line, as far as I can travel
on the
numbing breeze.

There are demons
on my boat.
I promised them I’d behave.
I am not allowed to wander, not allowed to explore without
a rambling mind;
I am not to follow the course of other ships I see,
or meet the deserted spits of land I’ve let float by,
or travel with company that stills me,
or make my own speed that goes against the tide.
They scrawled words along the wooden boards,
scored crude nail marks one evening while I slept,
hovered over and drooled on me with teeth I could feel
the ****** and beads of blood.
They scrawled words that told me they would leave me be,
if I left them be.

There are demons
on my boat.
And now I see a ship, with bright red sails,
drift to land not too far away;
a flaming banner across the surface of my shadowed sea.
I move my wheel, aimed at land-
assailed.
Onslaught of teeth and scales and spidery limbs,
pointed daggers and sabres of nail,
breathing hot spit and foul stench,
musty rot and all
rushed at me.
Blackened ooze of shapes and
distorted beasts;
I can’t take in any air that isn’t
toxic, ash making my eyes water.
Too gruesome to stare at them, intensely black,
yellow eyes and a multitude of ravenous, slick tongues.
I right the wheel,
and they creep back,
to rest in the shallows of my boat,
biting nails and shedding skin,
keeping guard on me.
Watching.
Restless flashes in the shadows hunted by the sun,
and drawn out under the moon.
Waiting.

There are demons
on my boat.
And it has been like this
for lengthy years.
Hopelessly blind and painfully aware,
at once,
of frozen breaths down my neck,
and bubbling fear inside,
of feelings.
Anything that leave me open to onslaught.
Anything that opens windows and lets their darkness
trail in,
tumble around and entangle innards,
I’m left speechless and sore inside,
nursing wounds I suppress.

There are demons
on my boat.
And the scary thing.
Is that I’ve made peace with them, and their scrutiny.
Yet I see birds above and blue trembles beneath me,
green jungles to the left and empty sands to the right.
And I refuse to hide and cower in peace.
Now.
I once again move my hands and face the
glimmer of land I see-
and they come rising from their graves of slumber.

There are demons
on my boat.
But they aren’t that terrifying under the sunlight.
They hurl abuse in my face,
spitting and writhing and screeching;
But their scales are actually just drifting smoke,
their nails just scraps of tattered fabric,
eyes just glinting stones and teeth just blunted stumps.
They scream and bleed before me,
because I’m focused on the distance behind them.
After hours, they retire,
like burnt out candles, the smoke dissipates.

There aren’t any demons
on my boat.

I live a life collecting pieces.

Pieces of fantasies forever the

realm of

childhood;

Pieces of imaginations turned wild and wonderful.

Pieces of laughter, confusion, delight and tears.

Pieces of melancholy, shards of sorrow;

fragments of regret, portions of jealousy.

Sections of desire, passion, leading us on

blindly to others of

heartache and yearning.


The rough edges of frustration, yet the

smooth curves of contentment, peace.

I live a life collecting pieces;

this is what I’m told makes a life worthy.

Worthy of remembrance, joy; fulfilment.

But only I can see the struggles,

feel my bones bearing more weight;

the aching tiredness I fall into,

when I’m not at work,

collecting the pieces I speak of.


The fright I hastily pick up off the ground,

when I compare my clumsy, ***** array of

pieces to your perfect and bound ones;

when you aren’t looking.

The dread I reach for, because you leave it crushed

beneath your feet.

The nervous tension pulling strings beneath my skin;

leaving me a reckless, vulnerable puppet

collecting the pieces left in your wake.


Torn to scattered, dusty pieces;

Reborn a puzzle of simplicities,

bright and shining pieces woven into form.

No matter where we have been, where we

were taken,

where we were loved,

where we were betrayed,

where we fought bravely,

where we surrendered nobly,

where we were embittered,

where we learnt of strengths and weaknesses;

we are all made of pieces.


We are collections of pieces.

You and I.

Our collection is known as life;

each piece is our experience of something.

Someone.

Somewhere.

And the more we know each other, the more

often our hands can reach for two of the same,

available pieces left before us.

I pen them down, keep them special and fragrant.

I live a life collecting pieces

and often they are of you.

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 nervous, simply waiting for you to snap me
like a twig.
I’ve bundled my feelings, my loves and hates,
all those outspoken words
and all those silenced words,
into a little gift-wrapped, topped-with-a-bow
gift
for you.

You will accept it.
It is what comes after, when it reaches your nimble hands,
that frightens me.

You weave your skill so well,
like knitted discord inside, I can feel
when I reach in to see if I’m all still there.
Under many dark moons,
you leave your shadow to keep me company.

It walks beside me, keeping my head whirring on into the
small hours of the darkened dawn when
I see it
at the foot of my bed
watching me sleep.
You told it to crawl into all the tight spaces
inside me,
with me.
It reminds me of you, endlessly, always,
breathing your name as I surrender to closing my eyes,
vulnerable lying before your peering shadow,
it could stop me breathing in a heartbeat.

Only you, sweet devil, can keep me falling so hard
so fast,
shedding myself trailing from your bed to mine.
I linger in the smell of you wrapped around my clothes,
taken off in a hurry as your words,
sizzling spitfire,
hand-made cuts and invisible haemorrhage
shatter me to pieces
easy enough for you to pick and keep in
your bed until you are finally finished
with me.

All I feel is the burden of myself,
when I really have no burden to hold.
I’m a phone running out of battery when you need it most.
Filled with a frenzied panic, a slap of frustration passes your face
to use against me all that bottled irritation.
If I don’t touch you back you will
wield it against me,
blame for insensitivity, a slowly seeping coldness
I can fight off under your roaming form
in a shady light of fear.

Your emotional abuse is a character.
It has a body, limbs and hollow face and it can bruise me
with a single touch.
I never leave my body open with you.
And to what end do I let you paint me with your manipulations,
your scheming tactics
your irrevocable evidence I’m worth nothing more for you;
like a girl’s doll known to be too pretty,
putting sticky residue inside their goals at night.

So use me with your infamous fingers.
I dare you, do it.
Again.

Hours of staying up, contemplating
you missing me.
Eyes crying blood all over the floor.
My chest grew smaller, an engine room
with the pressure vandalised and turned too high.
Fuzzy vision and lungs not filling; not soaking
themselves with air.
I can’t breathe.
Why is it so cold?

Drunk on sadness;
it permeates my skin
making everything loose and intangible;
my bedsheets become suffocating surf,
rolling and crying and sick
alone on misty rocks.
The next step could be the cliff.

I saw you with a another girl today
How numbing it is to know you are definitely ok,
More than fine,
when all I crave is to know and see
pain and misery bleeding from your wounds too.
It isn’t selfish;
because I need to know if you felt something.
If you had felt anything as you delivered your
sorry, goodbye.

I need to know why I suddenly wasn’t enough.
Maybe I gave too much to you,
and you were’t ready for it.
But maybe it was you.
You pictured a future
together, saying you had never felt this way before,
about anyone;
until you woke trembling, sweating one morning
realising the cruel hoax your heart played on you; as a fool
you listened.

And as a fool you made me crawl along at your knees.
As a fool you blindly made me ****** in the dirt for something
that proved to me you loved me.
Truly and deeply meant the promises you said.
That the words which passed your lips
were sacred, gospel and bathed in love.
But you fooled yourself.
And it was despicable for you to fool me.

I saw you with another girl.
How does it feel, wondering how I know and feel?
Or do you believe I’ve forgotten you?
Snap of the fingers, forged a new grove beside
someone else on the waiting list.

I’ve been with another man.
Though you haven’t seen it.
Perhaps even two.
Come and go in the life you always knew.
I don’t wish to hurt you,
but moving on means I have to.

I have to drive a knife beneath your skin
and watch you contort in pain.
Just like I did then.

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.

She paints herself, to better blend in;

She pampers and softens,

                                     she plans all the right moves.

She frets, ruffling her dusty feathers,

so battered and dull, the sheen lost

to empty restless nights alone;

alone and growing cold in the night.

She panics, blood rushing in waves,

crashing against her organs,

breath blown like strong wind.

She picks her clothes,

covers herself in shrouds;

she knows you will be looking.

She knows you will map her out;

the rivers and channels that create her landscape.

She paces, wondering if she will be

enough for you.

She only wants to be what you desire.

She wants to be the last thing you see

before you fall into sleep;

the memory you search for in your dreams.

She only yearns to have you coming back;

wishing to see more of her.

Be with her.

Love her.

Is this what we must do?

Morph into another, less wholesome,

creation of ourselves

to secure love and emotion?

How many forms can we take?

Is this just going to be a

battle;

a raging brutal clash of

shape-shifting and anxiety?

Are we just going to tally

the numbers of different self

we can create walking out

of bloodied bedrooms?

The scars of each transformation

hiding on secret patches of skin.

I’m running out of choices…

A crumpled dress thrown like rags

upon the floor.

The hopeless, desperate appeal

of rumpled bed sheets, a fortress of

your own.

Waiting for a message in silence,

curled and surrounded by your

dismembered pieces.


The days when you shy away from

the light;

Wrapped in a wall of quiet,

except this isn’t calm.

It’s an unbearable weight,

marking impressions on your skin.

It’s a deep, roaring stillness;

gushing, rolling and sweeping around

everything you touch.


People can leer,

eyes prying to find what

little cracks you speak of.

But they are immune to what you feel,

layered beneath your skin;

what you see etched in coloured mixes,

painted brushstrokes making art around you;

what you hear and sense;

what you think, to yourself,

the countless visions and places you peek

behind doors unknown to them.


The freedom you alone shall know;

yet all the painful days to follow.

The brilliance you alone can seek;

yet the relentless torments you are to meet.

The feats of strength, russet desire and

hidden depths you could show;

yet all the nervous energy,

self conscious woe you show.


You can be the exhibit of both worlds.

You know what it is to feel the deep burn

of quiet pain inside,

yet the warmth of healing and the

fiery blaze of strength.

Be the exhibit you know you are.

Render even the most lonely and heartbreaking

of your moments beautiful.

Because they truly are.


You may feel broken, torn and ripped in places

you long forgot could be wounded.

You may feel empty, insides carved out for

another’s purposes.

You may feel bereft, lost, confused and vague,

feeling the frightening gaze of the unknown making you

their favourite puppet.


But burdens can be treasures.

Use them and invite people to your show.

Make them laugh, cry and grow.

Your burdens and treasures are necessary,

to be the exact person you are.

Without them there is numbing, nothing.

And you,

you can be more beautiful than that.

I’m lying on my side, in bed,
thinking of you.
Spare a thought for me…
But I know you aren’t.

Beat the same tattoo on my skin,
with your invisible caresses, touches;
I’ll never know the patterns and marks are there,
until my fingers start tracing gouges and craters…
I’ll get to think of you every time I touch it,
only making it deeper when you don’t think back to me.
Don’t think about me.
Like I do for you.

I will have my one-sided love affair with your ghost.
Because you left it small and afraid,
in my care,
when you were with me.
As soon as your eyes began to know me.
As soon as your lips got their first prize of many.
It grew to such a true second you.

Because though I may still spare such
thousands of thoughts for you,
I know you removed yourself from thinking about me.
So how about I write this up, and
you can
think of me
now.

Do you know what it’s like,

to be the hunted?

The pursued;

the object, the target,

the one stalked like wounded prey

as the lights turn off.


You never called off your

hunting parade.

You took advantage of your skill.

You moved on me;

a soundless shadow creeping

along the walls,

clutching fear and regret in your hands

as weapons to

take

me

down.


Brutal, savage beast you are;

only I can see those jagged teeth,

razor spikes contouring your spine,

as you grab me from behind.

The darkness colours you,

brings out more than daylight ever could.

It suits you, you and the coal and soot

you shed

in my bed.

Warm, sticky blood you open like a tap.

You rip and tear and

reap your rewards

after such a masterful ****.


You left me wounded, dripping blood

like a grimy trail behind me.

Leaving me more vulnerable to

fresh attack

than ever before.

But there was something worse still;

more terrifying than any shot from your gun.


You left more than a scar, more than

a raw wound.

You left something behind that can’t be healed.

It becomes part of my being,

inserting itself into my body,

protruding it’s toxic spikes into

any future I have;

any future that might involve a lover,

any chance at companionship.


You battered me to a ****** pulp;

a ragged mess no one could ever

risk touching,

without the blood covering themselves too.

It would seep into the sheets between us lovers;

it would attack me quietly, viciously;

It would bring out the worst in me,

and every time I would be forced to save him.

Save him from myself.


Look at what you did to me,

foul, disgusting ghost you now are.

You’re the nightmare I hide.

You’re the burn on my skin I keep in the dark.

You’re the voice I try and drown in rapid

loves, fleeting desires.

You’re my brand. You’re the one who

decides my fate from now on.

You pillaged without consent.

You never even knew what you delivered

or what

you

stole.


The hunted.

That is what I am now.

The weak creature, struggling to

heal.

And I can never tell lovers what this

sad, lonely,

aching story means.

What I can offer gets buried in fear.

I can never voice the pain that

rips in waves,

icy and sickly

in my bloodstream.

I can’t voice the remorse,

or the loneliness I shall always greet,

before they flee,

the sound of receding footsteps they beat.

Newspapers are only covered in ***** print;

of despair and distress and danger playing master of our moves.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Paintings are for love songs left unsung;

they are the inner kept journals of unrequited dreams,

scrawls of abuse or lumps of hurt, growing like tumours.

You wouldn’t understand.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Music is only for the sunlit realm of lovers found;

of certainty and confidence and devotion above the sordid,

tangled affairs of wayward souls.

Living in a fantasy to escape the loneliness aching in soft spots inside.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Letters are lost in nostalgia;

a celebration to be had, words unspoken for decades,

births and deaths, reserved for life events detailed in the past.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


Movies are just reenactments of dreams;

stunning heroes, masters of skill, justice seekers,

adventures of awe, loves broken but patched together with stronger yarn.

A world of little lies to helps better cope with heartache and grief.

We can’t immortalise ourselves in something

when it runs the risk of breaking.

So I can’t talk to you through that.


But I can do something much harder

then writing or filming or singing or painting…

I can give it all up, over to you.

I can trace patterns across your shoulders as you wake,

our special language which tells you I love you, I’m trying to trust you.

I can write you little notes, decadent words and sultry ideas,

and make a trail for you to follow to me.


I can be vulnerable in your arms, more than skin and internals

and a framework of bones.

I can be more real with you than I have never known to be possible.

It’s not just me showing how much I need you by the length I hold your kiss,

or how long it takes for us to disentangle ourselves from sleep, how often

we see each other naked.


It’s more the heart I dare draw on your skin with my lips.

I got myself heartbroken,
by that boy
who I only got to see until decisions were
made for me.

Everyone talks about the heartbeat that goes still,
silent,
rippling waves of fire melting skin,
the stony sickness riding inside,
the absent stumbles as you will yourself to sleep
through tears and the stolen ability to breathe.

Everyone talks about being vulnerable,
the power behind allowing yourself to feel things,
as they are
seconds to minutes, days to weeks and dreams to dusty
cracks in open eyes,
letting in the glare of things gone wrong,
horrid failures and cut glass pieces lodged in broken wings.

Everyone talks about the necessity, the fundamental
break to start the healing.
It’s the sticky glue and ***** hands of being and not being,
at once rocking inside, feeling the edge, protective,
at once sitting on the edge letting the empty air hold you.
It’s the trust you place to let yourself be free in wrapped arms
and watch it get ripped out if it fails.
But it’s also the calm warnings,
like sharp pebbles making cliffs to climb on bare feet,
not getting out of the surf when the waves get to beastly,
to never let yourself feel fear and pleasure and
true, complicated, I-don’t-know-how-to-say-this
love and hurt.

I got myself heartbroken,
by that boy
who held me more
than any other boy did.

Everyone wants something they find so easy to
keep.
The lightness, the unburdening burden of
loving someone to love you back.
Nothing sweeter than water on a parched throat,
nothing more kinder than a respite for a heart beating too fast and too hard;
we talk about feelings like raiding lands and gaining empires,
scars and tears and blood spattering the terrains of our chests
when we open siege
and fight to own something we have never been blessed to keep
for more than an extended moment;
fight to keep you wanting more,
flames and sparks and agony
when we give you the open ground to
lay waste to us.

Everyone wants to understand what it is,
that makes each attempt so much harder than the last.
Did we damage something vital the first time round?
Did we develop a fever, an ongoing sickness that we breathe around
for weeks?
Did we shut down a vital event of trauma, so hard to close away we completely
forget to try, to damaged to take note of scarred skin?
Let it run and rampage and leave us losers defeated,
walking the same tracks to collect things we left behind,
hoping no one stole them from the dying grass while we slept.

Everyone wants to push aside the worst of things.
I do,
feeling broken and sad looking at my insides
on the floor, a little heaped mound of beautiful knives,
you coveted and hurled back to me, after a simple cut.
You were afraid to bleed out and watch me patch you up,
when I let all my cuts bleed open in front of you,
knowing you would finally be the one to heal them.

I got myself heartbroken,
by a boy
I desperately want to have back again.
I’d fall and cut myself all over again,
to reopen all those empty notches
just for a little piece in the chaos I walk head-straight that
brings me all that warmth and brightness and security and peace
again.
Just please, once all over again.

Not a doubt in my mind we could be so happy,
if you didn’t step in it. And leave me alone in the woods
hearing the howls and screeches and feeling the
feel of claws trace down my spine…

Restless days,

torturous nights.

Thinking.

Always thinking.

Click, click, click,

always clicking over in my head.

Snap to one image,

snap to the holiday you gave me,

snap to the dinners and treats,

you temptingly placed before me.


Fading hopes,

nightmares rising in the daytime.

Thinking.

Always thinking.

Click, click, click,

I confide in you what happened.

Why I’m always cold when

you reach to touch me.

Why I always patiently wait

for you to want to touch me.

Why I always wish to say

something but I hardly whisper instead.

And how it broke us.


Lasting, loving smiles,

darkening gazes and empty silences.

Thinking.

Always thinking.

Click, click, click,

I shared as much as I could.

I gave you whatever was

left over, still mine, not theirs.

You fell for me, I know you did.

Showered me with silken kisses,

steamy nights,

in all my curves

you found something beautiful.

Me on top, you

lulled me with sweet words.

I was like no other.


Fanciful dreams,

a bruised and aching reality.

Thinking.

Always thinking.

Click, click, click,

You made me want you, so badly,

because you believed I was good.

You handed me golden platters of

worth, passion;

I could finally acknowledge the shape

confidence takes.

It walked beside me.

I was foolish to place this charge in you.


Click, click, click,

Snap.

You promised you would always

be there.

You phrased such blissful melodies.

You wanted to be with me through anything.

You said that.


Why did the tide turn?

How do you go on pretending,

deceiving yourself,

when you said those exact words.

I heard you.

I heard you every night onwards.

I don’t believe you wanted to lie to me,

but you did.


You tore those stitches out,

thread by thread.

When you walked away,

leaving me turning to stone

in the freezing night air.

It whipped me, beat me and still

you didn’t look back.


Only now can I go to sleep,

knowing I don’t have to see you

imprinted

behind my eyelids.

I don’t crave you anymore.

Is it the same for you now?

You have a gift,

my lovely monster.

I get to own you in the dead hours of night,

all mine and rough and ravenous for pounding blood

and heated touches.


Words are putty in your claws,

my lovely shadow, chasing my body, so close.

They are malleable, leaky,

drizzling sweetness and love in sugary promises.

They crack apart when I reach to see if they are real.


Days are completed journeys, changing sides of your heart,

my lovely animal.

Softened heart melting in my fingers, wrapping my body one day

and bruised and brittle red glass leaving blood marks

painting crude patterns and ruptured brutal bursts on beaten skin.


She just doesn’t know how beautiful she is…
Through anything, I need to hear it, I need to be here…
You make me feel like I never have before…
I love you and I need you right now…


My body wants to wrap around you, when the shadows return

to rest along my lonely cold walls.

I devour your words, hungry and lustful, tempting,

the juice and hope of them leaves gloss on my lips.


I remind myself dazed and sleepily to lock your words in today’s box.

They can be shelved; raised and at once forgotten among the other

treasures you give me.

Each day is a new box my dearest monster.

I cradle and store your words like delicate porcelain,

only usable for one single day.

Only clean for one slim moment.


Right now I curl beneath you,

the smell of you stains my skin and littered clothes.

You breathe on me.

Your words are crashing noise; they ring and slice the air,

my head splits and my eyes weep salty remnants of your words.

Cleansed and rid of the filth you breathe into them,

your tongue that slithers through my parted lips, scorching my throat.


Your hands cold and threatening,

I can taste the dusty feelings you shed, like dead skin

flaking away its layers.

The words you mouth just spread ash around me, circles my body

like a dead hearth.

You never meant them.

They cover the frightening parts of you I can finally see-


Rip.

Seams exposed and blood making its slow passage to the floor.

I feel its sticky pool beneath me, my back lies wet and limp in your hand.

A husk bleeding out.


Lead me on and take what’s yours.

My heart. It hurts. It shrivels in the wake of your betrayal.

Stung and stopped,

you crawl off your prey.

Leaving it to be scavenged in the dark to come.


My lovely monster.

Come back.

What is it, that you could want from me,

my friend?

We walk along as shape-shifters;

Flickering, ephemeral forms.

Starting a labyrinth from opposite ends,

we hope to meet at the heart.

The strategy you follow and the actions I take

will never agree though.

I know you will keep left,

and I will circle endless maps,

waiting for you to find me.

Because that is what you do;

you find me.

I need your shelter, when I’m drowning in thorns,

spiny hedges, out of shape;

twisting and curling their brambles around me.


What is it, that you could want from me,

sweet lover?

Moth to flame;

shadows to the light;

a starving creature to the scent of fresh blood;

you gaze and crave and advance,

lost in heat.

I simply lean and wait to find you wanting.

Wanting the same crazed thing every other

man wants from me.

You are of the same mould;

burn the same;

hurt me the same;

excite me the same. But that is not an invitation.

I welcome the thrill;

but I also shiver at the chill you let in as you enter;

leaving the door open to a blizzard.


What is it, that you could want from me,

lovely admirer?

I struggle to cover up my holes and gaping wounds before

you eye me.

You like my insecurity;

you feed off my uncertainty.

You can sway me like no other.

Because you have seen those weak spots under

my skin and feathers.

And you show me you like them.

You warm the air around me,

everything shimmers and is soft to the touch.

I’m safe moving into your arms until

you show me truly what you are.

Scaly, coiled as a spring, rough,

grazing and cutting my skin.

You’re a snake that charmed me into

harm.

Stop admiring me, It’s worth so little

I could be better without it.


What is it, that you could yearn for in my presence,

my love?

Long, slow days wrapped in each other.

Excitement buries itself into expectation. Into routine.

I know you’re there when I call.

I know you sense my tears building,

before I do.

I know you already understand the words yet

to tumble from my mouth;

dirtying the floor and reeking of loss.

Why yearn, when you already have been given what

you need?

Why moan and cry at my feet, hurting, when you’ve already taken

what you need?

It’s only need. It’s not desire, or dreams.

It’s physical, real, and I’m the lost one thinking it was different.

Maybe, one day my love, I’ll be the one to yearn instead.

Loud enough that it will shudder and surge through your skin.

Enough that you can give back to me.


What is it, truly, that you want?

It’s so sweet,
how you held my hand in yours
and I could tremble inside.
It was a basic touch.
Not at all very much,
but I could feel your warmth,
your fingers caress my hand
as I surrendered to the dreams of you
that night.
And a new revolution ticks over.

Begin again.
Brighter and stronger as a flame,
you are drawn to the light.
This cycle, I can feel your lips meet mine.
The gentle press of your mouth, slowly
quickening as of a new blaze.
It was a larger gift than I foresaw,
but it left me aching, desiring more.
We are both not left wanting at all.
Tick, and a new revolution greets me.

To begin again.
You cradle me in your arms,
tight and close and I never want to let go.
Feathery touches tracing my body,
up and down you caress,
as soft yet powerful as spider’s silk.
We kiss and it leaves us out of breath.
I’ve never wanted you like this before,
leaving me craving for what’s in store.
Before a revolution takes hold.

A fresh morning, a new start.
I seem to float beside you;
you leave me drifting after you,
a ghost still attached to its haunts.

You are still as warm and beautiful as I remember.
You still leave me laughing and my
soul singing like no one has before.
But it strips me down to the core,
waiting for a new revolution again.

These little revolutions.
New cycles happen all around us,
to us;
weaving, pulling, cleaving and breaking;
lifting, strengthening, soothing and exciting.
All these little revolutions.

You are wanted again,

pined for in dark places.

You are wanted.

Flashing lights,

I’m in dire need of your touch.


You are wanted, teased and played for a fool;

You let them take your favours from you,

riding the rollercoaster at the carnival, over and over

again until you feel sick

to your

soul.


Sweet after sweet unravelled from the wrapper,

you are swayed into the night,

stolen away by their clever, cunning calls.

Secret sojourns in the dead hours,

clasping what little dignity you have around your bare form,

you follow the scent of temptation,

in all of its wildest forms.

You are wanted.

You leave them spellbound in your wake,

demons tickling your skin,

begging as they rock you in their arms.


Tangled limbs, heat and salt,

they crave you with the lights turned off.

You can feel the frenzied brush of skin before,

you even arrive at your

destination.

You take their calls and respond to their

distress, feeling a false power,

a slow drag of your pulse,

a maddening pull towards their open doors.


You are needed.

Perfumed; scented like innocent summer flowers,

you dress and quicken to their magnetic pull.

You find your way to their arms as deftly as if you’ve been before.

All the while your head and heart

thrum,

tick tick,

cogs churning over how bottomless you must be

to look for worth in the physical attraction

of a stranger’s

craving.


You are an addiction. A drug,

the ***** they desperately wish to consume, ravenous and

wide-eyed.

They know you need them too.

They know you are devoted to

soothing their souls,

healing their scars,

filling their desires as they drink all of you in,

a long sweep as their eyes linger at all the right spots.

They know you are devoted, submissive and persuaded,

growing like flowers to the sunlight,

because of the awakening they feed you.

Long dormant, you gather prowess, confidence,

strictly a tease until you bathe in their pleasure of you.


A light flares behind your eyes.

You are wanted.

The sensual hush as you both obey each other in turn;

Do you need me there, or here;

What do you like most?

You both trace and ***** for the task at hand,

locked together, mouths lost in each other.


You were wanted.

After the flames have burnt low, you lie awake

feeling the storm rage inside.

Why did you need to do this?

What was the point at being the forbidden sweet;

the object of someone so beyond reach?

Their eyes will forget your shape,

forget the games you played,

until they remember you,

born out of their loneliness.

Just as you leave feeling the scald of yours.


You were once wanted.

But now you crawl into bed alongside your insecurity.

You adjust the pillow to find pity nestled beneath the sheets.

Can you love yourself? If those men you please can’t really love you?

You can reach for them as they drift further back, but don’t

expect them to hold you as you sleep.

Don’t expect anything more than a cruel jab as they

tease you like a child.

Lull yourself to sleep, rest your body,

and freeze your heart in place.

Preserve as much as you can,

before it blows away on the morning air.

Let your arms hold you,

let them warm you

as you recover what is missing.

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.

I am waiting for you.
I have been since your last call;
the last words that left your lips,
the way they shaped each sound,
crisp with feeling;
the last hold I received,
warm hands withdrawn into the cold.

And now I’m busy playing your constant, forever
eternal mind games;
waiting for an end I know has to happen,
and waiting for you to make your moves and marks,
haunting mistakes or gracious choices,
whatever they happen to be in your mind.

And now I’m busy holding my heart in my hands,
watching all the people pass me waiting on the ***** street,
feeling awkward,
feeling stood up,
nursing it from the rain
and polluted breaths of people eyeing off my treasure,
smoke steaming from gaping mouths and sharp exhales,
like cascades of shining gems and mounds of
glorious entitlements, rolling down dreams
to those huddled beneath the city lights.

And now I’m busy deciding how long to keep
holding it.
Or to place it back inside it’s chest;
to thrum and pulse alone regardless, because I told it to.

And now I’m busy trying to adjust,
to leave this alone,
move my feet and leave my post,
waiting for you.
Keeping me and you alive is exhausting.
Draining nuture and tears, touches and examinations
to check that we are ok.
Are we ok?
I haven’t heard from you in weeks, but
you said you would be here.
To tell me your answer.
To make all this relentless pressure in my skull,
tension in my body
go away.
What happened to you not being the bad guy?
Like everyone who trailed crumbs of running-out love,
driving to me though the gas tank has finite space,
and held out commitment as they cowered behind it.

I haven’t heard from you.
And I desperately need to hear from you.
Should I stay, or should I go?
Are we meeting halfway, or are you expecting me to walk to you?
But I’m not.

I haven’t heard from you.
And I don’t know if I want to anymore.
Or whether I should just make this stop.
Whether I should stop denying it, and commence the
pain that stems with loneliness myself.
To be honest with myself that it is what I have to feel.
To escape from you.

And let myself
breathe and mouth the words
‘I miss you’
to the empty air.

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.

Starry eyes

soft hands

red lips

daring smile

brushed cheeks


Cool silences

heated touches

under clothes,

sparks sizzle

mouthing lust

cradling hunger

******* seduction

pressing desire


Stolen glances

furtive nods

open legs

graceful back;


sprawled apart

lights off

always are,

fingers invade

hands clasp

playful bites

exercised tongues

mouths explored

rough caresses

skinned alive,

beneath you.


Devoured clean

each gasp

shuddering ecstasy

tastes tangy

mouth over

mine whole.


Rolled over

pinned down

held up

crawled over

arched high

we come

clean.


Long received

wishes unveiled

want realised

fancies overturned

lust cold

power charged

but

empty socket.


Leave me

opened up

spooned out

messy bruised

cut bare.

Hollowed out

carried away

with sneaking,

light feet.


Wondering lonely

your whereabouts;

touching who

under covers

right now.


Lost darling

snatched love

tapered heart

stranded crush;

sing alone

sad songs

without me.

Empty rain,

weak winds,

nothing everything;

you’re lost,

without me.

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.

I’m placed between your thumb and forefinger,
like a delicate specimen;
you would howl to see me
lost
to you.

All I can feel,
is that I’m one bad-**** narcotic
that
everyone
wants
to use as the
temporary
replacement.
Leaving earth to greet heavenly fantasy,
return to earth and greet reality.
Fantasy can never meet realty.
When you need a buzz, quick fix, roll-over-and-****-me,
craze, escape, high, exhilaration,
thrill, choice joint to smoke
choice dope to taste.

You get to feel high off my body,
hallucinate to my laughter,
get comfortable with my movements.
I get to be the substance locked in snap-lock bags,
passed around in secret amongst ***** hands,
thick hands;
fingered and rolled and breathed in, licked and tasted like precious escape.

I’ll become the gift, forgotten to be given over,
because it’s a dangerous cocktail of not being enough,
and being the exact thing you want to keep for yourself.
Kept in secret, kept as a prize,
kept as an ego boost, a rationed sweet,
the very thing always denied.

I get to wait for you,
to come back to me.
Crawl on your knees and hide the words you
clearly say;
and it’s a little disappointing.
For you, of all and everyone,
to admit you need my drug.
And I get to wait for you,
biting lips and drawing blood,
mental fog and drowned heartbeats in shakes and quakes,
time lost dedicated to shouting your name in my head,
time lost getting clothed to be unclothed,
in the dark,
on clandestine dates,
dark rooms, silent phones,
standstill and empty pants.

I can’t find safety hiding.
I can’t find safety in the open, being prowled upon,
dusted and polished and robbed
of my body
of my deserving commitment
of my feelings traded to be your
low key
replacement
until your other lover
comes back
walks in on me naked
with you.
It’s ok.
My work here is done.

I’m disappointed you would ask such a thing of me.
I’m disappointed so many of you have.

I learn to find a home in the most vacant of places.
Lost between the naked form of you,
legs sprawled for each other,
and the naked ghost you sleep with on the opposite side of the bed,
with me there.

To hide with people that hurt me the most;
to hide for the sake of people that hurt me the most;
to learn to be the escape you crave the most;
to learn to be the temporary fix, the temporary her you need the most.

I can only see it crashing down when she walks back in,
and you see me as the empty husk you like to stroke
and I see you as the man I hoped wasn’t so empty.
But you’re empty, scooped out like an empty ice cream tub.
You’re cold and melted too.  

Any addiction can be solved with discipline.
It’s time for me to train you out of me, off me.
I don’t have to be insecure, because you seem to be.

Bye Bye Grenade.

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.

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.

Voices weave words around and behind me,

softly burying me in whispers and whims.

I’m a wallflower, pressed and trimmed inside

the neat frame you placed on me.


Cool, clean, crisp and curt,

I belong shrinking from the light, so you clearly say.

Clinging to the shadows covering the walls,

I have a voice but I only long for you to hear it.


Fanciful freedom lost on summer breezes,

fine lines drawn on hidden walls.

I’m the flower that blooms in the shade, in the night,

whilst you frolic and fade away.


Hiding hurt and shying from prying eyes,

huddled, hastened to escape the trickling lights.

You back against the wall, folding into me,

you can tell something weeps behind you, but

you just can’t see the petals.


Languid, lost and lonely beneath the silence,

I lurk in wait for your eyes to spy mine.

I linger over words unspoken, shared through time lapsed

between you and me,

I’m your wallflower, forever more.


I long to be over you.

I long to make you hear my voice.

But I don’t know how to press out from the wall,

to make you see my blossoms against such a wall so tall.


I ache to hear words spoken,

even lost in the static air between us.

I need to hear you notice me breathing, me whispering

sweet notes in your ear.


I long to feel touch, to know warmth and craving,

I’m in dire need of you, so please, just notice me.

I long to tell you of the tears I spilt for you,

that you didn’t notice on your shoulder, that you never see.


I am so tired of being quiet,

I have words to whisper but I can only be so hushed.

I need to tell you I’ve been there for you from the start,

but trodden and paled and left in the dust.


Everyone sighs over you.

Everyone mouthes and soothes and steals your gaze,

but I’m the one you press against for safety,

I’m the one you seek in you winding maze.

You don’t know it yet, but I know in time you’ll see.

It truly is, me.

Lost in silent songs,

calling before closed doors.

The prickle of tears before they spill,

uncared for and unknown,

onto the floor.


Never believe the words they speak.

They made me learn to never believe them.

They taught me to fear the words they mouth;

in gentle whispers pressed against lips,

argued or yelled or reminded or prodded,

a strategy in a list of seductive tricks.


I’m never your love, but your conditional toy.

Restricted to a timeframe;

before you get too old for me,

before you get over having me around,

before you cease to care I still have feelings.

The teddy bear that loves unconditionally,

but gets abandoned to dusty boxes deep in the past.

I step forward, you step back.

Try and understand my frustration.


Why must you always seek to lie?

Why must you always be the joker,

and play me like your beloved fool?

You know it’s easy to stop a feeling;

to drown it and stifle it’s cry.

But I only know how deep their roots go;

and how suddenly painful their death can be.


You look, but then you turn away.

You ask, but then you cease to ask.

You beg and persuade, but then you lose patience and stay silent.

You chase, but then you find an easier target to shoot.

You give, but then you realise it’s yours and take it back.

You care, but then you transform it into pity.

You like, but then you doubt it’s real and cool the fire.

You love, but then you know you never could.


I know your words are temporary.

I know they linger in the air between us, and I’m

not supposed to take them.

I’m not supposed to shelve them and trust

they mean what they are.

Likely, they aren’t, nor ever will be.

I know they fill a void, but again, they don’t close wounds.

They heal like stitches, before they only infect you more.


I know you like me.

I know you want me.

I know you say all the things I need you to say,

but I also know you simply shape them to soothe me.

They don’t have substance, or form;

they hover and poke in delicate places.

Lodge themselves like glass shards I don’t notice.


I will always be the physical desire,

the gorgeous thing you like to hold as your own;

but once I learn to love you,

you make it clear I’m only there for the moment.

I’m only there to please and tempt for now.

I’m there to entertain you, when no one else can.


Trying to find you, when you don’t want to be found.

Trying to hide what I feel, because I know you won’t agree.

Trying to mend something, that broke long before we touched it.

Trying to revive fire, when you left it to burn down long before.


All the doors you open, before you lock them shut.

All the lights you switch on, before you cut the wires and leave

me in the dark.

All the places we explore, before you run and leave me stranded.

All the pictures you help me paint, before you burn the canvases.


How am I supposed to trust you again?

How am I supposed to know anything?

How am I to open, when being closed means I at least

don’t have to pick up all your little lies?


Yes I will be your lover for the night.

Yes I can please you and touch all the right places.

Yes I can make you hunger, and realise your starving.

Yes I only expected it to be short-lived, destined to end when

you pack your belongings, and have your final squeeze

before you go.

Yes I know you need to cheer up, and being your private

**** will help.


But in the end, I know where your trail of bread crumbs leads.

It doesn’t lead to a home, nor a heaven, nor a shelter or safety;

but to a bitter, endless path of failures.

Of points I never met, and things I never did for you.


Never believe the words they speak.

Because you can never quite tell when to start to.

Because they are so good at breeding little lies.

And they are so good at conditioning you to believe

all the little nightmares you tell yourself are real.

So goodnight, and try to dream other dreams.

Because a dream with them, is unattainable.

We speak to each other in graceful touches,

left aching and throbbing with hearts out of sync.

And then we fail to speak at all, the throbbing stops

but the ache doesn’t.


We take photos together when we feel most alive.

And then we take photos to preserve what’s left, and

snap, snap before we see the stop sign.


We call, back and forth,

like flightless birds on opposite branches, needing each other’s wings.

And then we shirk, avoid,

run and flee at the slightest word in acres of blank space.


We cling like trembling flowers,

blown to brush together and meet petal by petal.

And then our slender stems snap, both falling to the earth

to not touch again and shed our tears in the dirt.


We sketch out our dreams, like mixing colours on a free easel.

And then we refuse to blend them into a painting of ourselves together.


We teach each other how to feel in love,

to feel desired, to embrace and to collapse outside our own arms.

And then we teach each other what absence truly feels like,

burning and itching and rough.


We whisper nothings to each other;

promises that we shall stay, that we would wait forever and long

into the dreary days of the in-between, honeymoon long gone.

And then we turn our backs and walk to opposite sides of our universe,

to hold hands with the scarce left-over stars.


We show each other who we want more than anyone else.

And then we take each other’s hearts when we realise we are

who they never wanted.


We understand our voices and our flaws.

And then we scream foreign tongues at each other,

hurling shattered insides and twisted hopes across our distances.


The double blade to every sword we wield.

I’m frightened.

I try to follow the rules, but danger is contagious.


When you breathe, something breathes back.

When you start to truly feel the sun, the rain clouds settle in.

When I take a chance and smile at you, you don’t even see me.

When I try and tell you to protect yourself from me,

you unburden your chest before me.


When you try to take my clothes off, I don’t let you.

When I try to hold back from needing your skin on mine,

I give myself over to you and succumb to what I can do.

What we are always free to do and make and see and need and feel and

lust for.


When I tell you all my truths, you reply with homespun lies and

glistening dreams

far too slippery to hold on to.

When I donate half of my order to you, you run from the attention;

hiding out in the deepest shadows and insecurities that are threads in

relationships.

When you push me out and let me in, I only try to destroy your walls and

invade your lands.

When you make me feel like a woman in your eyes, I fear you in the dark;

where your hands are going, what you want today and what you’ll need

tomorrow.


When you lean in to kiss me, I can already feel the metallic tang of

blood on your lips.

When I get to pull you closer, it’s a second of spark and minutes of

emptiness.

When I desperately want to savour what you say, I can’t begin to make

the words stay still.

When I dream of you, I can never remember what it was about.


When you prepare yourself to invite another into your sacred spaces;

witness the shadows, the creatures of your thoughts, the past and the

present you,

you must also prepare to bleed.

Prepare to kiss back and notice the cracks in your lips.

Prepare to touch and notice the bruises beginning to burst beneath your

skin.

Prepare to love and notice the heart the begins to hurt and skip its beats.


I go to bed and wonder why I was never

obviously

good enough for you.


When she says no to you, think of me.

Because there are always two sides to every argument, every process,

every feeling.

And you are entitled to bear them too.

We always make sure to hold each other.

We always cry to be wrapped in

each other,

heated embraces,

breathless kisses;

trailing bodies and entwining limbs.


I pen this wrapped in your abandoned

bed sheets,

the lingering smell of you staining my skin.

I sprawl over where you laid,

hoping to take in as much as I can of you.


I pen this while we’re disentangled,

to let you know something.

Please don’t loosen yourself from me.

Please, I worry when I wake

in your bed to find you were never

once there; you were never once taking me in your arms.


I pen this because I’ve realised what

makes it so painful,

to imagine you lost from me;

a distant, faded smudge in a photo album.

You’re a biochemical addiction,

a drug I can’t seem to avoid, I can’t seem

to stop taking my daily shot.

A sheer addiction rooting me down to my

bare bones.


I pen this because what we are is purely

selfish.

Relationships are purely narcissistic.

Lost in reflections of each other,

I want to love you as much as I can

while I want you

to love me as much as I can only try to love myself.


I pen this to open up the box of secrets that

sleeps between us.

To open up the lies we paint on each other’s skin,

when we lie in bed and dream across each other.

We bury our hearts in the beautiful rubble of

romance, ecstasy, heated passion and blissful reunions

of bodies and loves.

But really we cover our insecurities.

We believe we are worthy only when we know

we can be desired by another.

We believe in love, only when we are the object of attention,

not in our own eyes, but reflected in yours.


I pen this because we are each other’s poetry.

The sketches I get to make of you,

the colours you can pull out of me and place

on your canvas.


I pen this,

because it’s so impossible to let you go.

I was played,
played for a fool.

I wish I didn’t need to abide
by my own rules.
I wish I didn’t have to feel for you.

I wish I didn’t have to build a
shelter of broken sticks and dead leaves
while you fight your insecurities and
a heap of people I walked in on
around me
like I’m the no-man’s-land,
you trample to edge closer to nowhere.
I only want to leave your suitcase,
in the middle of the ***** street,
and not look at it,
as I walk away
and abandon it there.

Because I can’t take this
slow ****
anymore.

I want to let you in.

On a little universal secret.

We are an exhausted pool of all the little blind, maddening

instances we confuse ourselves with;

over people and instances and places left unexplored,

for us who feel the weight of lead limbs dangling limp from

the craving of sleep;

patient waits cut short in frustrating moments of self-pity and loss,

bereft and lonely over insatiable appetites.

Over friends we keep only to abuse,

lovers never giving enough but taking everything wrongly advertised;

the needle driven deep under skin after seeing jealousies dance,

float like unreachable things,

taunt and play and roast your heart in an oven,

cooking in the promise of eventual redemption.


I want to let you in.

On a little universal secret.

Being caught alive wrapped in shrouds of your own

faint darkness is miserable.

As a flower feels the warmth of sunlight,

so quickly it droops to meet the rough earth.

We are a maddening crowd ticked off at always

being second best, runner up, participation award;

jilted contestants,

competitors making allies and lovers, sequential,

in an ongoing battle of self and image and

all the ****** up soliloquies we recite with rough tongues

to an imaginary audience of our selves and their incessant advice.


I see your facade.

And i’ll challenge it every time.

Don’t think you have never heard the whispers circling;

don’t think you go home to shut all these truths inside a box of your own,

don’t think everyone else does too.

It seems like a sordid, unfair jibe, between the ribs and spikes in your head,

to wish you were that one perpetually fortunate, lucky, charismatic creature we

worship in our private dark;

we all worship each other.

And that’s where all our collective monsters feed on us poor, poor

struggling souls.


I want to let you in.

On a little universal secret,

that you can only deny so long.

There are many of us, made to feel few,

hidden in millions and billions of tight springs

that only gather so many more of these confusing thorns.

I’m talking about us,

the ones that have to leave a ‘do not disturb’ sign

inked on our foreheads when we disappear to somewhere else

because we have to. As far as we can.

We are the people who fight for conversation first,

and always back away first not because we want to

but because our minds are thick, and sore, and so

exquisitely filled with self-deprecating jargon and patched, sewed

stitched in places clumsily,

a surgeon not paying close attention,

that fails to keep the muck from seeping out.

The pressure in our heads that makes teeth grind, eyes tear,

mouths shut dry and parched, a surge of nausea

a general lingering present future lasting feeling of unsettling nerves;

sparking blossoming dull throbs of hurt that make us bow our heads

half in physiological need and half in the self-fatigue we feel

fighting ourselves every time we rise to a challenge.


I take my meds, I think things over.

I take my meds, I think things over.

Repeat until you’re tongue-tied.


All my friends are getting wasted,

and i’m feeling lonely getting self-wasted with them.

We know abandonment like no others,

because even our minds leave us for a time,

even our very selves walk away from us like broken lovers,

hurt friends, empty strangers, sworn enemies

it lays ambush to our patterns of self, lightness,

trodden leaves melting slowly into the ground like

the cycle back to dirt and lowness again.


This is half my little secret.

But I’ll tell you in time if you’re ready.

So now I’ve let you in.

On our little universal secret.

A time,

sometime before the last time,

or even a little more lost

in a dusty box

the time even before,

I wanted to tell you something, sweet.


When you press against my skin,

or hold me at length,

you are wearing, shredding,

tearing and smoothing my very

surface.

I wear myself upon my skin;

internals are external,

I don’t hide behind mirrors or imagery;

magic tricks, pops of champagne,

dazzling details or embellished,

encrusted, coated

and processed

goods.


Those who are privileged;

ungrateful and cursed with ignorance,

little awareness for the multiplied demons nesting

in blackened hearts,

sipping sour emotions and rancid feasts,

those are the people who hide what doesn’t need to be hidden.


Those who are privileged;

independent and cursed with anxiety,

pressure behind their eyelids at night

and a very heavy head to move and keep

the walls up, guarding against the terrors and the screams

and the glistening shadows, slick with grief and

self-pity, self-loathing and what people judge

as an infernal mental contagion,

but really is just an unfortunate, battle of imbalance and chemicals.

Awry and lost and deep trodden in a mind that never rests,

always misses a beat chasing other beats

and fearing the biggest monster in the fields called mistake.

Those are the people who wear it all like skin, coloured by bruises and patterned

with cuts, carvings,

soothing over the outside and deciding its already faulty,

can wear it on the outside because its already broken,

not really worth protecting

and don’t hide would could and would mostly be hidden.


Sweet,

this is me.

I’m rough, I know.

I rest

in your bed

when I’m scared of being alone with myself.

Depressed again and as I lose control,

realising I never really have an end

keep pounding and chipping at

every word I’ve ever though and every feeling

I’ve ever had to succumb to,

I’ve ever always had to feel,

sending for help and working on strength to rebuild,

shoots flares in a black blanket of sky;

lending your little demons the opportunity

to find you.


Jealousy is the most dangerous form of punishment for us.

Me.

These people that we are.

We crave respite, sweet.

Out of earth and mind and here and now,

out of beats and taps, clicks and repeats.

Out of straddled cycles and digging into ourselves with

our own fingernails.

But really, I can’t call you sweet.

You’re just the person I imagine

so I’m never caught alone with myself.

You’re just the person I want for myself,

and can’t reach towards, afraid and corrupt and broken to you.


Blacking out with my eyes open.

A blank space, a blank knot and a blank guess,

rolling over inside.

Short-term memory shot.

Feeling the weight

and the hatred of my omnipresent self,

mind disheveled, unraveled,

fighting a battle you can’t even see;

takes one to know one.

I deal with my pain,

no one else digging enough to find a spring,

land-locked and bone dry,

questioning the mirage I stumble through a desert for.


Questioning what real is,

something everyone can pick and grasp,

smoky cloud and bitter wind to me.

I try and see some reasons,

stumbling in the finding

of plain ground, nothing else.

Perpetually uninvited yet constant host,

parasite,

addicted to everyone else’s company.

Asymptomatic to symptomatic,

mind the bickering beast,

same person, same bodysuit,

but I,

I’m locked inside with you,

yet watching you wreak your havoc,

vicious, bitter monologue ringing wall to wall,

grating and wailing and driving me broken

and twisted and pinned like your own art.


This is what I wanted to tell you,

eventually.

When I noticed a break in the internal racket,

a clear view from my cell into yours

I realised nobody wants to hear about this abuse,

not even you;

avoid, ignore, pretend it isn’t real so you can sleep

alone in your cell just one more night, again.


I just want people to better understand what this is like.

Why I simply can’t explain it.

Why I can’t tell you.

Why you will run.


Now here’s your cue.

Stand up and

Walk out on me.

Am I not pretty enough?

What the **** is pretty anyway?

Do I not workout enough?

Am I not on the same hypes and drugs and drinks as everyone else?

Am I not on the same rollercoaster of routines and work of sleepless drones?

Do I not live fast enough for you?

Am I not forthright enough, demanding enough, shocking enough?

Am I not tall enough, too bulky, too reserved, too quiet, too confused for you?

Too little to be involved with

or too big of a person to begin understanding?


Am I too rigid and formal for you; are you angry I tighten up when

I let you touch me?

Or are you intimated when I make you drip desire all over me

and I make you touch me there?

Am I too sophisticated for you; too intelligent, am I too bothersome?

Am I not a bad girl enough for you? Because you seem to like whatI give you

in the dark.

Do I make too much effort over you?

Do you run away because I fuss and ****** over you when we say we

love each other?

but you pull out too soon for that.


Am I too difficult to comprehend, too broad, too much danger and disaster

and sadness and realism for you to deal with?

Do I not change my ideas, swap decisions enough for you?

Am I not a good little lier?

Am I not good enough in bed?

Or are you worried I’m faking it?

Do I not want you enough? When really, i’m itching all over to have you to myself.

Or are you scared I’ll start using you for *** and desire and

lust

like you do me?

Am I not tattooed or scared or brazen or daring enough?

Do I not try and meet your friends, while you hide them away because I

can’t get too attached?


Do I look too lonely for you?

Am I not needy enough for you?

Do I not party like you?

Do I not make moves like you do?

Do I look beaten and bruised and battered and scared of you?

Because I have every right to be.

Sometimes I need to hit myself with spirits to remind myself how unpredictable

and unbelievably cruel you can be.


You get to slide your eyes all along me when I walk past, on my way home.

You get to ask me questions that are only designed to pry my legs open.

You get to glide your hands around me and daddy me long past bed time.

You get to buy your way in to get me closer.

You get to make your intentions too clear, and no one stops to question you.

You get to wait and watch and steal a glance or graze your fingers up my skirt,

without a flinch.


You get to own me whenever you feel like, send a text or blow a kiss.

And I’ll be a fool to cave in, and be blamed for doing so.

You get to use me for your rough release; i’m left tender and raw and you love seeing it.

You get to push and pry and tease and taunt,

just **** me already so I can cut these ****** strings. It’s all you ever want, even if you

tell me it surely isn’t.

I’m your animal, your toy, your prize and your trophy.


So **** your opinion.

Keep your approval personal.

So **** your designs; your proof I’m dexterous and skilful for being fun, not for

commitment.

Keep your work in storage; placate me and say they’re failures.


So I ask you, am I pretty enough?

Or am I too self aware of your righteous *******?

Idle moments,

forgotten dreams.

Listless wanderings,

raucous play and empty hearts,

bleeding away the foul nights.


What is a moment?

Come take a walk through the infinite second;

void of definition, standard or law.

Come and watch with me.

The sordid dens filled with debauchery;

the lonely houses drowning in darkness;

the enchanting thrill of lovers’ chase;

hearts stolen in the quiet night;

nightmares frightened off with the touches of a lover.


Come, let’s discover the possibilities of one single,

droplet of time.

The eyes that meet;

the friendly greet;

lovers we lose;

the farewells we choose;

Lifted hearts tempted and lost,

to frivolous imaginings at great cost.


Come and see the multitudes of fantasies;

donated or taken in a moment.

The first kiss we grant on tender lips;

passions ignited under the blessed light of stars;

to wandering hands prying into locked chests;

cruel bargains stolen and delivered in secret touches.

The people agreed to;

those consumed without consent.

All in a single moment.

One fragment can narrate endless stories.


Come and lose ourselves in the worlds

we shape for each other.

Blossoming loves;

petty arguments won;

promises made and broken;

lascivious thirst for skin on skin;

fights turned brutal, burning, raging in the dead hours;

shattered trust; bitter confusion;

stinging remorse;

the pulse of regret tapping under the skin.

We feel so much in one second.


Together, a seething, roiling

mass of humanity laid bare.

A connective unit, ignoring it’s separate

millions of limbs.

Let’s marvel at this spectacle.

I’m so scared of what you’ll do to me.

I push you away at the start because I care.

I’m all cold fingers and neck as you inch closer.

I know that giving my heart over to your hands is delicate and dangerous;

I realise having it injured by you is more fatal than another, more blood loss,

more bruises, more painful blossoms.


I always want you nearer; no one can comfort as you can,

until you turn off the lights

for the night

and all I see are abandoned impressions of you around my room.

But I need to stop you. Right here.


I need to keep you an arms length apart from me;

stop you kissing and touching me.

Not because I don’t want you;

I will always reserve a place for you, always part of my dedication.

I want you all over, from head to feet.

But I need to stop myself from falling into the one abyss

I know too well.


I need to prevent you from loving me for a time,

or at all.

To keep you from breaking the blissful illusion I conjure;

to keep you from lying to me about why you can’t love me anymore.

To stop you from taking me over.


To stop you from making me believe you are like all the others before you,

inked and stabbed on my skin like knife cuts.


To keep me from imagining you were never there;

a dream that swirls with reality where it has no place.

To ensure you don’t start picking me apart with your teeth, while I sleep,

and you begin to fade.


I don’t want to meet the same river of conclusions, fussing and moaning and

screaming about the agony as you pull me apart one final time.

Take what you need and run.

Scoop it out like melting ice cream and disappear somewhere out of my reach yet

close enough to invade me again when you need to.


I don’t need to feel this again.

With you of all people.


So.

Stop.

This.

Now.

Do you know what you do to me?

Quiet fury, hauntingly close.

Every time you say that word, you leave an imprint,

a naked brand scarring my skin.

Raised, sore, bleeding on to my hands.

Soon I’ll be covered in welts,

because I can’t always agree to your demands.


Frigid.

Why so frigid?


You are now my disease.

I carry you wrapped in bed sheets inside;

nestled deep inside;

you course through my bloodstream,

hot, boiling my blood;

Sending flushes of sweat flooding my skin,

as you try again to reach for something that’s not yours.

Waves of infection that I wait to succumb to, every time we

feel the need to be intimate, to have a semblance of normality,

when I know I’m not even close to sharing myself with you.


You’re not…affectionate, are you?

You barely do anything, you leave it all up to me to love you,

just do something in return, start something would you?


Do you even realise your foul play?

I can’t help but carry your marks and bare them for

each new soul that steps towards me,

lovingly, until they know what I seem incapable of.

I do love you.

I do want you.

But please realise the scars and wounds and battle remnants I harbour;

bruises that don’t disappear, stitches that don’t disappear, tender spots

and pain that doesn’t

disappear as you try and ****** your way in.

You can’t be a cure.


Stop. You are just so cold.

Are we ever going to be together if you can’t do this for me?


You roll over in bed.

I can feel the heavy burden of disappointment.

Your chilly reception of my arms

resting on your chest.

Almost like I’m the one causing you suffering. My touch gives you

flinches,

subtle twists of your body away from mine.

I feel so horribly naked before you. It isn’t pleasant anymore.

It isn’t beautiful anymore.

I do all this for you, I lie down at your feet

and surrender myself to this icy blizzard because

I’m trying to make you happy.

I’m trying to keep you satisfied. It’s always been the battle I rage with

myself,

warring and violent punishments when I fail to keep you here,

tucked beside me,

warm and safe beside me.


I’m so sorry there are times

I can’t show you just how much I need you here.


I’m not stoic; I flail and drown all on my own, without you,

Without your fecund roots to keep me grounded.

Without your whispers and nips and possession.

Without your lips on mine, without your push and pull;

Without your refuge I seek, to escape myself.


But don’t you ever name-call again.

Don’t you ever make me close up inside again.

Don’t make me retract my limbs and curl,

fold and bend down, into myself, because you are hurt.

Don’t you ever think I don’t feel, don’t think I don’t need pleasure as you

do.

Don’t ever think you always provide it the way

I need you to.

I’m the one who cries at night, howling at the things I still don’t

achieve for you.

I’m the one who feels that I don’t support your weight as you

do for mine.

I’m the one who drifts into sad reveries of the time to come;

The time I know will come when you flee and run from

my outstretched arms.


Frigid.

Frigid.


Get out. This will never be ok.

Stop sending that word ripping underneath

my skin. Don’t impale me on such a lie.

It’s tender. I can be so gentle but you only remind me

of brutality; dominating my strength so I don’t

know it’s there.

How is that right for you to say to me?

Do you know what you do to me?

Music sings out, sobbing in the silence

of a darkened room.

It rises and falls, waves of calm and turmoil,

shared in bursts;

crescendoes of chaos and gentle melodies,

like bridges between tears.


This is where heart-ache resides;

patient and deadly, it waits.

It lurks in crowded corners, along with

all the other sins you make room for.

It makes the music you wish others

could hear, soft murmurs repeating

long into the night.


This is where everything resides.

The dark portions are home to all

your creatures, and all the music

they make;

worn strings and sticky keys.

Jealousy and its drumbeats

paired with dishonest notes and

the jagged shadows of your temptations

and spite.


The room is loud around you, but no one

on the other side of the door can hear

you cry it’s too loud.

They hear a rustle of leaves in a barren night.

Nothing more.


I confess.

I confess I still love you.

I confess I still desire another, and another;

I confess to all these temptations, passions left

sour in my mouth.

I confess to dreaming of you hurt.

I confess to rejecting your body once before,

a one night stand left on pause for days.


I confess to inflicting your words, just like I confess

to feeling bruised and wounded.

I confess to tears, when I see you embrace another.

I confess to tears in the long, cold night; because

I only feel empty at the thought of your name.

I confess to wishing I’d screamed at you, howled

in agony before your eyes as you slipped between my fingers.

I confess to hoping you would admit your scandalous lies,

and confess to knowing you never would be good enough to.


I confess to whispering your name above me,

and being glad I don’t have to bear a response.

I confess to painting your memories in words,

and loving how they float away,

as slippery and fine as silk.

I confess all these things, in your name.

This is what hurt looks like.

This is what pain creates, added that

you are conditioned to feel sad.

Chemicals unbalanced and unchecked,

You’re a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.


The sudden icy tingle of cold

as you move from warm sunlight to shade;

the sudden shimmer before your eyes,

blending into the last sight you wish to see that day.

The sudden jump in your sleep,

before you fall and wake knowing you will, soon;

the sudden lights that dance before you,

before you know they’ll eclipse you as soon

as you are left alone.


These are all the ways you are unpredictable.

These are all the little things you

plead for others to understand.

And all the little things they never will.

Because that is the cruelest blow, the

omnipresent bleed underneath the skin,

the constant broken limb and sickness that

doesn’t heal.

That is the cruelest part of all;

they just don’t understand.


I write and let the frustrations climb the pages;

mountains inked out before me to mark

the journey’s edges.

I write and leave traces of every scar and wound,

praying one day you will find them.

I write to leave it all behind;

leave the roads mapped as far as they have been followed.

I write in order to tell you things I no longer can,

to remind you of what I was, what I did, how

I helped you move on to someone else.

I write to ask you the questions you never allowed me to,

to ask why

how,

who,

when?


This is how I process all the ways I hurt.

So I can avoid the physical cuts and bruises.

So I can gather my defences, to brace another onslaught.

So I can enjoy, love, laugh, grow while my demons

are away, left on quests to search for the proofs they can

use against me; paste on walls in my mind.

I know you won’t understand,

I know you can’t and I have learnt to allow you

to fall short.

But you need to hear some truths regardless.

This is how I process all the ways I hurt.

How do you look at yours?

We found ourselves in
a sticky
sticky mess
didn’t we?

We can be so intimate,
because I hate making my walls
from already crumbled bricks and
clay of wilted loves,
the dredge and slurries of everything that went wrong
plasters together the insecurities I hide from,
to protect you from.

You didn’t even build the offence I expected,
to prompt my building, my construction and strategy and
internal combat.
I didn’t have to crouch at your feet,
long forgotten how to feel for myself.
So mastered at letting you take over my body,
make it move with you where you need it to be,
matching ecstasies and heartbeats
and sweat and moans,
feeling you aroused,
secretly wondering if I was made of stone.

It took one touch
to do it.
Just one hopeless exploration of two bodies,
for me to return to my shrivelled husk,
tearful and vulnerable and exposed for all the others,
tainted parcel, envelope turned inside out,
only wishing to be your absolute perfect,
in and out of bedsheets and
the expectations we see peeking out of the shade,
******* us and ruining us as we go.

But you make it seem all ok.
You make that one shadow in my past,
turn me into something else entirely.
It still bothers me, plays me, screws me over and over
until I break a little because it’s just to much trauma to overcome.
Being used for little night-time, quickened searchings,
finding out what people always want from me,
and what they are happy to leave behind them,
with me.

I’ve always known about emotions.
But I don’t think it’s ever been this easy to feel them.
To feel that rise and fall of a wave people keep ranting of.
Because of you, I get it now.
It makes me see stars and feel everything hit at once.

It’s always a start that ages before it’s time.
It’s always the nerves that settle under my skin,
bumps and bruises and dead hour wanderings,
waiting for the inevitable moment it all ends.
As soon as you like me, I start to panic.
I can’t sleep and eat waiting for that little rattle,
pop shake
of when you pick up the phone and make my panic real.

I can only believe you for a day.
I can only like you for for a day at a time.
I can only show you what I am for a day at a time under very
rational considerations.

To feed you until you want me no more.
You can scrunch up your eyes and turn to plead you would never,
but having been a lot of messed-up lovely things to a lot of people,
I know you are a human emotional puddle.
And they were all human too.

And all our time together
becomes a heartfelt plea,
the heavy, pressure-on-chest of hope
that no one ever warns you about,
of the dangers of letting yourself go
with them
that special person
feeling everything you strive so hard to suppress
given over to trickster hands and laughs
of those emotions you fear.

We don’t regret it.
Not at all.
But all our movements and affections are
dictated expiry dates,
and I hate it being about us needing
to consume as much of each other
before the time ticks over and
it’s all spoiled.

So this solidifies where I am,
where I am coming from,
when I curl up next to you.
This is my flagged position,
in this strategic push-pull, give-take, want-relinquish
games we desperately seek to play.
I’m always the loyal friend, crying when you close a door on me,
or leave me aside,
or throw me away for someone, something new.

So instead
for now,
I’m going to remind myself of all the things one day could be true.
And get a little lost in you,
because that’s all I can do.

It’s that or I’m going to have to watch you walk away,
and hope I feel this rollercoaster again.

I’m worried for you.

I’m worried about what I’ve done with you.

I’ve buried you in the sand, grazed your skin with fingernail cuts;

half moons pattern your arms and back like wallpaper.


I shouldn’t succumb to this.

I’ve dragged you into a pit and stored you in a hollow.

I shouldn’t need to pick a random lover, I shouldn’t need them now,

urgently.

I shouldn’t crave the physical I know you yearn from me behind the

silence

that snakes around the room.

Behind the intensity and firmness of your face.

I wish I didn’t see it all so keenly, a sensory power I dredge up

from secluded stores and hidden vaults.


I shouldn’t have fallen into my own snare every single time you

pull closer, warm breath and lips and teeth,

and I push your chest away.


I don’t understand why I have to do this.

Puppet pulled on strings to do strange and filthy acts;

gaining strength and poise not necessary but pleasurable,

lying with you knowing I’m with company but feeling so alone,

so cold and dusty and ***** on the inside.


I lose myself in a moment, spending all the time

thinking in the moment.

I’m so wrapped up, I don’t hear you mutter to relax.

I will not do this with you, because it means

ultimately hurting one another, in particular you.

I will not try to encourage you, because me lying next to you

knowing you will hand yourself over, is like slipping on ice.


I taste blood in my mouth.

I think it’s yours.

I bled out years ago, over the bedroom and into the bathroom;

showering off filth and wetness and ****** handprints.

That lingering, thick smell of sweat and fluid and nothing.


I’m so sorry I can’t be strong enough to resist my shadows,

my faded lights and creeping tongues;

I’m so sorry I set them on you, like vultures given

the scent of already culled meat.

I am your predator, hunting amongst the heaving animals,

long into the stillness of the empty dawn.

I’m so sorry, sweet, that I will reach around and take something from you.

I’m so sorry I tried to protect you and betrayed myself.


I wanted to embrace you and welcome how you felt in my arms,

I’m sorry I just couldn’t express it.

I wanted to make sure to uncomplicate us; secure that safety you felt

with me guiding you too all those vulnerable places to touch together,

I’m sorry I just couldn’t express it.


I still long to try again.

Will you let me try again?

I am astounded.

My cage has been rattled.

I am shocked, disturbed, dazed, fearful, isolated, saddened, used, violated,

agonised, tormented, defeated, sensitive, anxious…..

I am numb to the point of icy pain, hands wrapped around an ice cube too long

or drowsy and burning in the sun.


Slowed movements, hypersensitivity.

Tossed around like an angry wind, howling against locked doors and battered, stuck

shutters.

Adrift, skinned like game, on a still ocean sailing for nowhere.

Hunted and forsaken in a desolate crowd of onlookers, puzzled and ignorant of their

games.


This is for all the people we have failed.


Abused and tormented in sickening places and deserted dreams.

Alone and neglected, hugging the dirt in cold overpasses.

Starving and frightened of the guns that come creeping around the corner.

Intimidated and overpowered in darkened corners and pitiful shelters.

Traumatised and pillaged for their self-worth; their integrity stripped and naked.

Discouraged and silenced from voicing desires and fears and nerves;

humiliated and mortified in feeling a certain way, describing processes and beliefs and

doubts and insecurities battered away like persistent flies,

to masses of individuals too small and petty to understand.

The deprived and vulnerable, resigned to poaching and begging at your feet for some sort

of salvation, some help that you deny.

Those re-abused, broken and prone to retaliation.

The abusers and addicts, with no other faith to follow.

The destitute we turn from;

fear tactics of government and the impossibilities they promote for people.

We can’t help you.

The falsehoods we idolise.


The loss of empathy is so whole and catastrophic, lives are rendered pathetic,

belittled, scrutinised and judged unnecessarily for shell-shocked, domesticated,

embittered humans to mock and disgrace.


Ignorance and dishonesty prowling homes, and lives and friendships and lovers;

claw marks separating precious flesh from bone.

Those alone, locked in bedrooms, looking down at who they wish they weren’t.

Pawed and petted, fragile girls taken over by ruthless men before they cry.

Even in reverse, the vulnerable boys stripped and used.

Men in chains, abused and threatened and stripped of dignity, in yards and prisons,

in families, in offices and secret hideaways.

Runaways chased, pursued and shooed; harassed until beaten.


Turn your head and notice the scars they hide from you, sleeves rolled down;

the red marks and seeping blood from opened veins that you deny exist for people.

How real those demons are, how terrifying and ghastly they are because even you can’t

visualise such horror.

Blackouts ended in crashes and destruction and blood and tears;

drowning bathrooms, locked rooms, ***** floors and painful years.

Nightmares and paranoia threaten safety.

Agonies of the mind can never be realised, internally cutting.


You want to know what society is like?

You want to know how inhumane the humans have become?

Don’t bury your head in the sand.

You only ever paint what you wish to see, alone on your raft.


If I’ve forgotten someone, some place, some awful truth, you are starting to see then.

You are believing me when I tell you it’s all real.

What are you going to do now?

Always look back

over your shoulder twice,

you never know

if there’s a chance in hell

to see them again.

You coated your words in spice;

fragrant lies perfuse deep inside.

Wrapped and bundled and brandished

in bouquets of flowering excuses.


You’ve taught me a lesson;

after letting those words of yours

taint the inside of my head,

dripping into my heart.

Spoilage, wasted.


Never could you have committed

any crime more cruel.

When your flowers wilt

and fade,

when your spices turn rancid,

I will know what it was.

You never loved me at all.


You can replace me in days.

Find a new love to call.

Apparently she fills the voids

I couldn’t anymore.

Take those fanciful dreams of yours,

of you and me and memories,

and bury them alongside what’s

left of me.


I don’t need to be pulled along

into your little playground;

your little fair, exhibit, of

times gone by when we

once touched.

Just know that I’m still the one

who took you exploring.

I’m the one who offered you a different

revolution.

I’m the one you worshipped naked before you

not very long ago.


And you, girl.

I can only offer you such sympathy.

Because you’ve opened yourself to the same shadow,

the predator in all loves;

the one that toys and bends and preys on that

vulnerable little parcel of yours.

The one that beats for him.

But don’t forget it also beats for you.

And do you really want him to tease and taunt and

hold that thing?


Poor girl.

When he brandishes that same bouquet at your door,

you know it’s time, poor thing.

I am enraptured.

Holding you like I want to absorb you through

my skin;

You holding me tight keeps me warm from the night.

You calm the fear, awaken the spirit, without even realising

the electric charge you make in me.


I don’t need to feel insecure with you.

I don’t need to be my worst enemy, punishing myself

from dank corners.

I don’t need to remind myself of icy touches, meaningless frenzies,

pressured

to feel vulnerable in the dark.

I don’t need to feel hunted, I know I don’t deserve to be dangerously

pursued.

I don’t need to wait for the sharp strokes of daggers against my skin the

more

we consume each other.

I know I’m safe to wait; I know it’s perfect as it is, building up for more.


You envelope me like a warm dream,

cozy, perfect, vivid, deep;

I can feel your pulse, a soft hum,

playing beneath me.

It quickens as we fall deeper into each other’s arm,

a tighter wrap, a closer kiss than before.

Is it possible to feel so calm with someone?

Is it real for me to see stars and tepid colours, the streets and lights of

the city anew, knowing I can kiss your cheek and

slip my fingers through yours, holding tight.

Bundled in your gaze,

I know I’m doing everything as I was meant to.


Kiss and play,

run and sweep,

into each other;

heart and hands,

eyes and roaming lips, soaking in each others’ terrain.

We draw deeper into each other,

Why do I feel so safe?

Don’t make me let you go, don’t make me embrace my soul;

cold chips, broken shards;

blackened and scorched as the wasted plains of my heart.

Please fill me.

Whatever you do, don’t let me go.