You cut a dashing figure
between em and en and
oh, by the way

Your abbreviated smile
has me wondering what
it stands for

as I place my finger on
your ellipsis … you lead me on,
there is no doubt
I feel left out

But as we track and kern
our forms, ascending,
make ligatures to avoid
an overlap of strokes

a diphthong doth emerge
o’er our line o’ type
and what was once

paragraphed into separateness,
our thoughts juxtaposed

begins to merge
(bind in parentheses)
you’n’me make syncope

and, once the story forms,
the digraphs make shapes
with our mouths.

When I look at you I see your beauty
But when I close my eyes I see what you mean

Many things die with death
including uncertainty

All that time spent wanting to be found
means it was liberating to be lost

The world is neither with nor against you
It's simply what you make it

It’s easy to make hatred from a distance
It’s easy to make friendship in person

You can change behaviour by shouting
You can change a heart by listening

An invalid argument is valid
if enough people believe it.

The truth gets me excited
Lies make me sad.

The truth is cool and scary, like the ocean
vast, intense, buoyant and salvation
Lies fall like stone,
brittle-sounding, metallic and rusting

The truth holds up a piece of me,
pronounces, ‘it is,’ then
nothing further needs to be said.
Lies are speaking of the greater good
but heaven knows I’m the only one of matter

The truth elbows its way into the room,
boisterous and convinced and mothering,
Lies are squeezed and sullen, pushed to the back row,
suckling on comfort food

The truth is a jagged edge, untidy around a greater surface,
enmeshed with its surroundings and judgement.
Lies are like paper cuts, slow to mend,
and apparent even when they’re not noticed.

Even if I don't say it, or pray it,
or admit it to myself
there is no other home for me,
No sidestep apart from that which separates me.

See that grave-plot? Therein lies the truth,
that residual part
when all the rot and decay have left my heart.

What I am will outlive me,
the truth be told.

I live and breathe and think in this space

Work in this space

Pray and eat in this space

until you come along—you and your arms-wide space

heading to overlap me, drawing Venn diagrams around us, two

mapped inside a certain intersection,


almond-shaped, like your eyes

always looking upward—at me, or her, or the stars,
Eyes like mirror *****,
illuminating the world’s dance floor

Steps bounding enough to motivate us both.

I am charged with your leap of faith,

opposites attracted and drawn across decades,
I invite you in, believing wholly in me

Knowing I can never make this space

big enough for two

Yet after the party we sit here in silence,

as only friends do.

Neither are you here nor done
having slipped so quietly into the
great not knowing,
small strands of you still tied to my belly
the rest now illusory

although misleading
might be a better word for something that
draws such compelling lines to an
indefinite space.

If a lifeline holds me here, what do
I call the lines to you?
The paradox is, the death-line holds
me here just as much

Perhaps it binds me so securely to the nothingness
that I am held still,
safe, here, then

A short life, waiting to dissolve to meet you
A greater life, rested in your impression
A happier life, to have known you
only gone because you would be here to begin.

Through pain and prayer I emerge 

**** breath for the first time 

and though I see not you, but a blur

I know you from the inside

hand held, I am walked with care 

over linoleum and playground 

and altar, to grow into myself, 

cheek wiped. And then you let go

as all mothers must. But never leaving, 

even when, ungrateful, my brittle ego 

takes me far from you, pretending I can 

find a space more sacred on my own

You gave me that dream.

And everything else—for you gave me life.

And although I must, trying to improve
on that is futile.

It’s getting harder to realise

the need to be driven

I want to be where the earth is

in a void, but always held

Stillness is the moments when the

crow and grevillea find me

Holding release, I think of you

in my bed and am flush warm

And I remember beauty, as if

it were there all along

Putting down my thoughts for a while

I pause, to let your memory catch up.