i. when completely alone i know what i am.
no, my brain is a liar, is a lie, is a – turn it off.

ii. i run out: on the wildering of my selves.
i trim them down; less to disguise, less to carry.

iii. please take one with you on your way out.
there will not be a chase.

i catch the tube to notting
hill and hope, from
the back row
of the coronet, that
when the lights come back
on, and it says "the end"
in black and white,
it's wrong

in the blanket of night
i know of ruin
and on quiet early mornings
my grave-heart
is still

i remember it was five am
and sat on the floor tiny
next to your bag
bursting huge
to make better use of space
you slowly placed items
inside your shoes
"i feel like a criminal"

i know you were real
i have photos to prove it
and i have a memory of you and i
outside and inside mcdonald's
with sweet teeth
but now your face has strayed
from my span of sight
and i have none of your possessions
to gaze upon
no shirt to pick up
and remember you move inside it
i feel the sun on my back
more than i feel you
and i have never known the sun
the way i knew you
no matter
if i could remember
your hand in mine
it would not find you
back here with me

like two hands on a clock
our bodies move in fractions
with movements so slight
they go unnoticed
and the distance grows and fills
with shapes and sounds
to drown out flashbacks
of eyes, of hands, of mouths

(this interspace between us always
lasts much longer than the moments
when our hands align)

like two hands on a clock
our meeting is
inevitable
and two days later –
when i wash your smoke from my hair
your breath from my skin –
the water cannot sever your being
from my being

and unlike two hands on a clock –
that map the time in patterns unchanging –
i cannot map our movements
towards or away from each other:
there is no clear explanation
for you and i

i painted a face on a cushion, a body grew,
a cotton version of you, an acrylic substitute
for clumsy limbs that clutched my skin
last year. i swam in the lovesick silence,
you were my choir but you were quiet
now that your love had expired.
with eyes sewn shut to the sunshine,
the violent lack of colour left me tired
and i remember the day you told me to leave
like a succession of pleas against all i believed
in, this faith i had gained
in a god who went by your name,
you were giving me gold in the form of a game
and the rules had started to blur
but i still saved all of my body for yours,
i emptied myself to swallow you more
and i was thinking,
just after you left,
that my heart is a ship and it's sinking