i cut all the strings

so why am i still
your marionette?

their spines are straight -
two different trees in two different woods.
people like them are not meant
to come face to face.
is this the first time the distance between them is silent?
emptied of political din, hoarse
shouts of protest in market squares,
flags unfurled not in love for a country
but in hate for the other.

are enemies still enemies when they are of the same space?

the two girls recognize
that their hair curls in the same way.
they don't reach out to touch
but a curiosity forms a thread between them.
a thread. their fingers tingle, flutter
spooling and unspooling
this new connection, this new thread.
their eyes swing like pendulums.
how new, how strange to breathe
in air that is clean of artificial hate.

they are curious, spooling and unspooling.
what will happen to this thread?
for threads are too easy to break.
and each knows the power of governments,
their ability to dangle them
then break
and break and break.

the two girls wonder. the two girls stare.
they look. they look and look.

but their spines are straight -
two different trees in two different woods.

the smell of a hospital
disinfecting hands and
identities
placed on the counter.
a passport-size ambition
a fingerprint of luck.
you have arrived.
you are here.

you came in
a bus full of languages
funnelled into the room
'welcome to - '
lost and found
in translation.
you cannot understand
you will try
to understand.

your newness.
new you.
you are new.
you do not understand
you are here.

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

the girl with the blue hair
bled outside of the lines
like the overdose of colour in the
comics that she read.
big eyes and
big lips - the girls on the pages
had hearts for eyes and tears
of fat diamonds.
their sadness so precious.
their affection spans shaped
like rainbows in the
big big blue.

she liked all the colours.
the girl with the blue hair
painted her lips
in the new york cold for
life should be livid, life should
be vivid.
and she
wanted the colours
inside of her blue.

like inking a sketch she
filled herself up.
i was silent when this meant
she threw herself at countless walls
to call
the carnage 'art' -
see how

the girl with the blue hair
became an artist.

the tenderest thing. the tenderest thing.
is stumbling
in the hollow between
life's collarbones. it feels just like
velvet.

innocent. a moment.
crushed-soft, caught you unaware.
as vulnerable as hot
breath
alighting on your neck. his
fingers lacing round your ribs.
a moment.

innocent.
placing lunch plates in the sink
getting washed by sunlight instead.
a glow on metal
so bright, so clean
you think of a baby's skin.
warm.
like love.
like love exists
in everything.

the tenderest thing. the tenderest thing.

sometimes love is not relentless
but like the soft smiles we keep
safe for goodbyes
it sleeps. a playful
child gathering breath.
don't you see that i love you?
but you will know it
in the ceilings of uncertain places
in the fingerprints on your beer
in that shirt you forgot about
but you'll wear it today. now.
our hearts will look onwards.
we are only at rest.