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

what if in the night i let my girl-heart out
its muffled murmurs, its soft
unfolding sounds;
let it go completely

would i almost learn how to settle in life
learn to unbloom the bruises
on skin too tight
to remove completely

would i lose colour and find it among flowers
would i lose colour at all

i was a daughter once, i know,
not so long ago, when i
had a mother
with all the answers
and skin that never bruised.

we were close; her
branches around mine,
we’d unravel stories,
in winter’s light, and lay,
in those old mornings
where i felt safe
but branches break.

i was a sister too, a child,
with siblings sleeping, side
by side, in a rose-wine
sea, me – so small, we –
looked-after,
daughters lost and losing
something, someone, sooner
than we thought.

these days, that girl
is gone: sometimes i find
the ghost of her in
photo albums, teddy
bears, bob dylan songs.

i’ve yet to ask my sisters
if they’ve seen her.

sometimes
beside you
when i should be sleeping
i put my ear to your mouth
and i can hear
the rhythm of your breathing
like waves that roar
inside a seashell
it keeps me awake
when all else is quiet
and i forget
about all the loves
and unloves
all the smudges i tried
to unsmudge
all the things before you
and sometimes
beside you
when i should be sleeping
i imagine myself
to be so much more than i am
i imagine myself
inside a seashell
i imagine myself
as a wave

my feet felt far away but they were where they’d always been. my hands were gone, that i knew. my hands were with your hands in the pockets of your creased black trousers somewhere in your mother’s house.

i walked right out, high tides rushing up my spine, until i found myself submerged in a sudden plan to never speak to you again.

i forgot all versions of you, the slow of your smile, your shape next to my shape. i forgot myself, intermittently, and bruised my way to a beginning, stretched so long, so thin that it disappeared entirely.

how tired. how tired you became at loving. you said, i need to trim this ingrown soul of mine, twenty times, and i shook wildly, remembering, but trying not to; you were the one who left, not me.

in a public toilet: i find remaining parts of you, of me, resting gently on my cheeks. i make a wish, blow them away.

and i think, *i knew someone once,
he could retell his dreams like well-thought-out novels,
his eyelashes reminded me of stars,
his silence was a heavy drone.

there was a time
when you were something
for me to begin
like a space where our roots
could settle in
we grew around each other slowly
the buds of ourselves
blooming in the quietest way

many suns have warmed
our leaves since then
our petals lost their colour and scent
and i still blame the rain
for washing you out
so i don’t have to remember
that there was such a thing as
loving you too much

the allness of you, softly
crept, upon my heart
with muted steps
and held me there.

i was a bright
spring flower

then i lost
all my pollen

but the bees
keep buzzing

the bees
keep buzzing

termites crawl in my stomach; you
are my disarray, o soft and golden -

take the curves of my feet, the
freckle on my lip, and

hang me on your wall, you
compel my speechlessness.

i'll keep guessing, guessing
and unguessing.

i am up all night over this.

how is it that
your quiet limbs drown
in their sea of sleep
heavy with childlike refusal
to move like they did before

when rain taps
at your window
with a thousand fingertips
can you remember
how it feels on skin
can you feel it
because you used to

i ask because
i cannot see the brave
in your face anymore
but answers will not put feeling
where feeling used to be
regardless
i ask

sometimes
i stay awake
at night
(your hand
between
my knees)
and wonder
if this is what
being alive
feels like

when you wake
and ask
for my love
(your breath
hot against
my face)
you do not realise
you’ve asked
for an ocean
when i have only puddles