There is a snowflake
on your eyelash
that I long to be

Take me with you
when you leave

Show the world to me

The expendable existence.
That uncomfortable rat on your skin.
The cut in your gums that bleeds when you chew.

The last feasible member to fit on an ascending elevator.
Warm.
Hot.
Itching.

The spinach in your teeth.
The tear in your jeans located too close to “there”
The treacherous unzipped jean fiasco.

That crumb on your face.
Where is it?
‘To the left’
Is it gone?
‘A little more’
How ‘bout now?
‘Got it.’

The untied shoe.
The untucked shirt.
The eyelash stranded on your face.

The rainy wedding day.
The gold earring under the fridge.
The luggage thats flying to London instead of Zimbabwe.

These are the unwanted little honeybees of everyday being.
cracked mirrors, guitar-snapped strings,
welts of fire and third wheel things.

And after, there is only a gaping emptiness
the familiar ache
The desire to drown myself in soft things
Fill my pockets with pebbles and all the poems my muses will never read
And wade into the Lethe
To the place of the first breath after momentary pain
The liminal gasp between sighs
The first touch after a long absence
Body awakening to memory.

Welcome weary traveller, you are safe here. Dwell. Abide.
The scrounging scratching crawl you call a life withdraws.
Here,
Float in the fingers of sunlight through glass
The murmur of breath against hair
The glimpse of ripples from a water-strider’s gait.
Here,
You are small and safe
You suffer no harm nor cause it
Your existence has curled in on itself  
And blooms with the sunrise.
Here,
Your presence is a fleck on a robin’s egg
The bruise of teeth on a petal
An eyelash in sand
Lost, lingering, and longing.

The Lethe plucks the pebbles and poems into the current
Your likeness billows with ink in the wake
Adrift, I clutch at your fading hand
But rising, find I do not know this face
Left only with a flicker
Of a stranger’s arms
around my waist.

Daisy Lowe‘s body positivity and refusal to bow to fashion industry pressures have cemented her place as one of Britain’s hottest exports.

From international catwalks to Pirelli calendars, the 27-year-old’s career in front of the camera has gone from strength to strength - all because she’s unapologetically herself.

To celebrate her latest endeavour - a partnership with lingerie brand Triumph UK - the model sat down with The Huffington Post UK to let us in on her secrets.

What does having a positive body image mean to you?

Being comfortable in your own skin, embracing all your flaws and accepting that you are who you are.

Being individual is a beautiful thing.

Where does your confidence come from?

It’s definitely something any person living in today’s society has to learn and grow up to achieve. I’m still working on it on a daily basis.

Everything that I put into my body makes a difference. How much I work out makes a difference. Surrounding myself with people I can laugh a lot with and around whom I can be 100% myself.

What advice would you give to those struggling with self-image?

Love the parts of you that you don’t enjoy so much and be kind to yourself - that’s something that I have to constantly remind myself to do. Go and do something that inspires you or makes you happy.

How do you banish self doubt on bad days?

Meditation and mindfulness helps. Having a check-in with yourself and trying really hard to be present.

We can look outside ourselves and think about what other people are doing, -especially with social media - but if you can try your best in the exact moment that’s all that matters, because that’s all that really exists.

What would you like to see change in the fashion industry?

There’s a lot more room for variation as far as models go - we should be promoting that all shapes, sizes and ethnicities are beautiful.

It would be lovely for plus size models not to be called ‘plus size’ - they’re being used for the same jobs. We’re all just models - wearing beautiful clothes that make people feel good about themselves and helping designers to sell their creations. I’d love to see more ‘in-between’ size models too.

How do you decide what to wear in the morning?

The darker and greyer the world is outside, the more I wear bright colours - as long as you’re sunny in yourself! I’m such a creature of comfort – I’m a huge fan of pulling on a pair of stretchy comfy jeans (Lowe swears by high-waisted styles by Paige, Frame and J Brand) and I love a bit of cashmere.

Jewellery wise, I always wear Crystal necklaces or chains by Loquet. I’m also a fan of a cute tea dress and ballet shoes. I love that Brigitte Bardot/Jane Birkin 60s/70s vibe mixed up with a bit of 90s grunge.

What are your favourite shopping spots?

Lark Vintage in Somerset is amazing, and in London I love Mairead Lewin Vintage. Those are top secret - I never usually tell anyone those.

Brand wise, I love James Perse, Cocoa Cashmere, Erdem, Simone Rocha and Ganni - I have a leather jacket from there I haven’t taken off for a year. I also have a troubling Saint Laurent addiction.

Talk me through your daily skincare routine.

I love the P50 W Lotion by Biologique Recherche, it’s done absolute wonders for my skin and makes it much more clear.

I also swear by the Crème de la Mer Genaissance de la Mer serum, moisturising soft cream and eye concentrate.

For my body, I use Aesop A Rose By Any Other Name cleanser and Balance Me for their luxurious moisturisers and body oils made with natural ingredients.

What are your makeup bag staples?

Tom Ford is a go-to. I use the Traceless Perfecting Foundation, which has SPF, and the concealing pen around my nose and eyes.

I like to keep my makeup really simple, so I’ll use the Laura Mercier Paint Wash liquid lip colour in petal pink on both my lips and cheeks.

For eyes, I swear by Tom Ford Waterproof Extreme Mascara and Kevin Aucoin eyelash curlers.

What’s the best tip you’ve picked up from a makeup artist?

My makeup artist would **** me if I ever slept in my makeup. Another great tip is to make sure you conceal around your nose. If your nose is red it makes your whole complexion look uneven.

Also, always apply lipstick all the way into the corners of your mouth to continue the line.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done in the name of beauty?

When I was younger I used to make these weird DIY face masks with my friends. We made one with mashed banana, avocado, honey and peanut butter. Peanut butter on active teenage skin was not the best idea.

Any other beauty secrets you can let us in on?

My facialist Arezoo Kaviani is amazing. She’s a real healer at heart. She does a deep cleansing ****** with extraction and LED light therapy.

I also tried a collagen wave ****** recently, which was great.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

Two fishing poles, a feather,
a leather jacket with holes
on both elbows, forty-four
dollars and change in
an envelope, some dope,
a pair of worn out cowboy boots,
a clay flute shaped like a bird
that can't whistle a tune worth a lick,
an unused bus ticket, a picture
of two kids laughing pretending
to fly; an eyelash in my eye.

Scuzzy film on a scalding riptide,
Bare sinew woven like scaffolding,
Catcalling as warm-and-fuzzies
Mince by like so many exposed marble legs
Passing construction sites.
Crimped by a polaroid viewfinder,
I sit alone and click-click-click
With folded memories in my pocket.

Let me just set the record straight:
I’m still in love with our contrails,
But you can go **** yourself.
We were helter-skeltering kids
Rivulets of caustic devotion
Sweltering down our skeletons,
Fly away with me again, please
I’m seeing synonyms for you
In every ally-cat hymnal
This gutter throat can sputter out
Seeing scarecrows bound by wicker muscles
Shivering in a windfarm
Powered by all those doors you slammed
Snapping together like worn
Rubber bands warm summer hands --
Dance with me, you were
The most perfectly human
I've ever felt.

Is that Listerine rolling out of your mouth
In waves of empty bottles once meant for me?
Off of your shoulders like a cape,
A swindler, eyeing you
Like you’re trying to sell me cutlery.
Exchange glances that are
Trailmix crumbling between couch cushions,
Rubbing shoulders with waspy relief,
Tendrils of comfort had me gripped by the biceps
Spread eagle like a petrified starfish
Till I lashed out at you with bullwhip arms
Because my own back had been too hard to reach lately,  

Mirrored
Ad Infinitum.
Your tongue looks like a mirror,
Stick it out at me,
We always did look more than alright together
People stared on the subway,
Called us starry-eyed without a trace of irony.
Back in the day when you made me happier
Than something I don’t even have a metaphor for,
Just happy. Happy needs no metaphors.

I still check my reflection every once in a while
Never know if we’ll collide again anyway,
Best to be prepared but instead I
Drift aimfully towards a catacomb of eyelash wishes
And equally corny ******* I never believed in,
Still don’t,

It was getting at us, though,

Rubbing sandy fists down to the core
Instead of holding hands
Crunchy apple shell
Skin friction,
Bite the seed,
1,000 angry pomegranate teeth,
Chapped lips like crustacean shells,
Aligned like eye-freckles
Me looking like an unused punching bag,
You somewhere off in the distance,
A fading marble of plasticine light
On my wavering horizon.

Because yeah, you broke my ******* heart
You were novacane cruel and selfish
And so immature it stunned me
But you also taped it back into my chest
On the day we met so I guess we’re even.

It’s funny, already I can’t quite remember your voice,
the shape of my name in your mouth,
how you laughed,
but every word  you ever said
is still carved onto the back of my hand
like a roadmap towards all the ways
you showed me how to love myself.

Still rubbing them away with your scalding riptide,
All those words you said about forever,
Now just shackles,
So gladly did I submit to yours,
I still hate those ornery devices
Even now when,
They’re curled at my feet
Like broken wings.

a hand puppet
unable to put up a fight
the hand goes crazy –
excuse me if i’m clumsy

remember the other months
a december that closed its mouth
cleverness (that’s what moves me)

we new ones are out in the cold

lint resembles snow to me
clinging to your eyelash why haven’t i
been able to see which of us is right

let’s repeat it before i forget
that people die in every season

watch the roses fade

Cheers!

I propose a toast to the pink elephant in the room, that with the encroaching darkness ******* lightly across his abdomen, seeping through kidneys and out, out, through veins unaware that they are carrying their own demise.


Cheers to you!

Every time I see you, the chasm in my heart gets just a bit bigger.

And she, darling companion, falls deeper. So now she’s submerged in this canyon-- something sickly beautiful, said to be carved from glacial ice thousands of years before.

She’s irritating the muscle,
tiny toes picking off bits of scabs just beginning to heal.

And then I see you once more.

Cheers to you!

You’re in the center of this pyramid. You hold your wife above, your son and younger daughter beside you, an arm around each. Buy she lies below, unknowingly wait for all of this to fall on her.

You  balance my life on this precipice. Doom sleeps on either side. I’ll fall slowly to the left, wake the monster. It’s barbs will dig through flesh and I’ll stand-- an audience member.

You’ve grown too skinny, turned so pale. I wonder if your veins have grown dark as you’ve become accustomed to carrying poison meant to **** it before it kills you.

Cheers to you!

You who wont, can’t, end the world.

I pull myself up and out—emerge from my rabbit hole of ignorance.                                                       ­            
I have this fear of the cutting edge of dragonfly wings-
How unoriginal.

We all let the hollow swallow us cleanly down, almost forgetting the tiny 
pebble-  bringer of doom and resident of the gizzard- we will most certainly meet in the course of our journey.

I get sent secret messages of affliction—a disheartened face here, the nervous twiddling of thumbs there. Secret, I say, as they appear of fog and disappear with the flutter of an eyelash. They’re all my own, sent with sonar like that of the blue whale.

One looks born of red, achieving different color as eyes move inward. A girl wearing a Parisian hat and a scream that’s almost silent. Another comes silently during a drive, more sensation than image. Everything slows. It’s hard to conjure words, to make the right motions.

I’m reminded that life is a paint palate, a measure of darkness. I know there are people much farther along than you and I.

Cheers to you!

Being submerged in pain makes a person different.                                                       ­                                   

Born of loss, causing loss-- pain never really disappears.

Sore that festers, oozes, scabs, gets torn open.

Cheers!

Raise your glass as I speak so quietly, I can only hope
You’ll hear this from across the room.

Raise your glass to the memories I have of your hair- now reduced to silvery down- your strength.

Raise your glass to your daughters, your son, your wife. I think you know I cry for them—not you. Two girls. One living in two worlds- mine and a world of parties and experimentation. The other so smart and so repressed. One boy. Unbeknownst to him, he won’t know how to proceed without a father figure-figure father.  Unbeknownst to him, he’ll have to proceed without. A woman. She’s lost in this never ending labyrinth of test results; given too many choices when there should only be left or right. And yet, she’s not ready for it to end.

Raise your glass to Insanity, the mother of Brilliance! Endurance, the daughter of pain.  

Cheers.

I toast to the spirits you've been counting, lying in that hammock with a stranger from Mars. Your muddy fingers, they creep like hairless spider arms between the ropey knots that bind together all its parts. There is a house inside the hilltop, where it peaks there is a church- there once was a man in shackles and handcuffs living there, he also had mud on the bottoms of his feet. Even the pennies you found get lost now and then. Even your white hair goes a shade of blonde. I can't sleep but I don't try, I never tried not to do something so much that the rest of me broke. I pushed so hard that sand fell into my socks. You only told me half of what will happen to you at 10am, the rest of it you told me that you'd prefer I didn't know, but if I am to survive on the secrets I know that you don't know about. Then tonight I will be sewing the wool over my eyes.------------------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------------------------------- No one could ever have any idea what comes easy. The creaking heavy wood of your slop-room door, or the filth I cough up in green, mustard, and tar globules every hour. There is the was. Small hands in half pockets. Stitches supposedly dissolving into our skins. The yellow wall, the panda pillow, the Pink Sugar, your hair wax and heavy handed straight-ironing tilt my curved and bent feet Northward about 6 to 60º degrees. Late trains and no complaints. Stubs of hair and tender legs. I don't give but my elbows buckle. This frame wasn't built to take blow after blow. Some friends tell me they can see tomorrow before it comes. Lakeside, readied, silver-necklace I haven't seen. Gold flightless bird that's never walked but says it will. I am cornered, my cornea tinted my vexes and leftovers, black and white pearls, birthdays, earthworms, and vinegar. Family dinners that push me nearer to the hole in the donut. I'm just so afraid of falling overboard. It's just I can't go forever without being heard.-----------------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------------------------------- In and the. How long do stories like this carry on for? Does my name come up in private? Does mom two even know whether I ever existed or if I was split? I am the answer to the secret 'ask' question? When do I become background photo one or two? I am the one that's grateful I had a chance to sleep toe to toe. That I uncovered the winter that woke up the bleach and incense in the frosted air. While school is in session, am I crazy to believe in mermaids and sparklers and stickers, I'll stick with the choice that I made a year ago Tuesday- September hasn't ended but November's nowhere near. The reason I smoke so much is because I am no good at waiting. For phone calls, tweets, texts, updates, or written mail. No one told us that this could end underwater without even half of a breath, if you'd of asked then I would have told you that's why I steal your underwear and your sweatpants. You can have all my money, I don't even want, I just need it for you. You can have every word that I write, wield, and speak with, every sentiment and sentence, each promise,and compromise, everything that I own.-------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------------------------------- Four photographs later. Everything means something. I'm in knots. Spiderwebs from elbow to elbow. Fishing hooks from knee to knee. My neck feels very naked, bare. Nothing, not even traces of pink or cerise lipstick or lip marks. Smudge me, stop punishing me, please, prease, don't leave. This isn't very good for either of us. My story cannot tread so closely to an ending, to the ends of a night or a phone call or an eyebrow pencil or an eyelash curler, not the double-sided extra-soft blanket you keep on your bed, not the bottles and dollars and boxes and jewelry under your mattress, not the zip in your doorway or the zipper in my jeans, not the two holes in my belt loops or the caffeine in my morning coffee. I quit cigarettes, ended my sentences earlier, grew quiet, wore more band shirts and skinny jeans. Even the lines of lips, outlined by hips, white roses painted red, blonde hairs blanketed by the bleaching on your head. I'm wrestling hula hoops, I'm putting my pinkies in your gauges, and amazed how good it feels- and I'm happy you didn't....leaves of autumn shatter on concrete city streets, although you'd hate it I'm thinking of a tattoo sleeve, how about you make it? Darling please! Rice Krispie I'm on my Lee Dungaree's, begging you to meet me on our knees. And every candy that I spit out once I got to the middle, every lollipop that I ever bit into to find the gum, each Happy Meal toy I bought separately; you are the only girl I attended school to meet when I wasn't enrolled. I'm holding on. The bottoms of my jeans rolled up so I don't fade into use. I miss having your tongue in my mouth. I want to feel my hands in your pants. It's my tongue that gets curious as I begin to feel the heat off your *******. Tender touching. Dire romance. Throttle my face with your legs. I'll perch you up on a pillow, you can hold my head till I beg. Because if I go at this life thing alone, pretty soon I'll have a mouth full of lead.

His eyes are gleaming
as he glistens from afar,
How beautiful it is to have an
Aphrodite like appearance,
I wonder how it would be like
to fell in rabbit hole.

Why it felt like second hand
though we waltzed on a shipwreck
I lost on his footsteps as I tighten the grip on his hands.
I watched the stardust fall from his eyelash,
dreams do come true
as I fall for that hope.

Under this canopy
of dark
gleaming stars
I now sit
allow my body
to take residence
in the aura
of my own
glowing
      let thoughts
             of reason
         slowly unravel
until they
become
one
     long
           thread
connecting my
mind but
releasing it
to the air
Molecules, like
the tiniest of crystals,
gently whir
energetically
             about me
in almost
invisible stirrings
letting the power
of energy centers
take over:
Red,
    for my root
            for I am
               tethered
          to this earth
       Orange, for
the passion
so strong
                and truly knowing
         my own worth
Yellow, for
            my gut,
                instincts open
              and a-light
       expanding into
universes, broadening
my sight
Then my heart
washed through and through
in shades of green
its own incandescence
filled with verdant,
                     fiery sheens
It beats a lantern
of vitality
in this ocean of pain
sending a beacon in
the darkness
helping to break old,
patterns
prompt them to
         snap like rusty chains
Here it pumps in growth of
leafy, budding  light
Guiding my spirit
      in ripeness full and bright

I rise up
into the
indigo-turquoise
of my throat
as words burst forth
                        in surges,
in the salty froth
of ocean spirals
             they float,
get pulled by
mysterious urges
Like waterfall mist
just kissing
the tips of eyelash
                 flickers
these words that
have the power
                 to calm
or make my blood
                 run quicker
And then:
the deep purple
of my crown
that tapers into
a shimmering white
          and I know
I can now
receive myself,
calm, in queenly
presence of mind
of spirit
in my highest
                  form of
                             light

Amethyst dew drop
Eyelash down
Full lip up-turned
Pink, glossy, round
Glitzy green sheen
On my half moon lid
Prism bright stud
Like the Luxor crown
Slightly levitating
Pierced, royal, proud
Skin luminating
Glowing from within
Golden, honey, brown sugar
Streams of gold and brown
I dance like a moonbeam
I dance like the sun
I dance like a star in flight
I dance on the run
I won't let a single man
Take this glow from me
He did it once
He did it twice
Three times
Shame on me

"The first time I saw her...
Everything in my head went quiet.
All the tics, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared.
When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments.
Even in bed, I’m thinking:
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips..
Or the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek.
I knew I had to talk to her.
I asked her out six times in thirty seconds.
She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going.
On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or ******* talking to her...
But she loved it.
She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times if it was Wednesday.
She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk.
When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely locked the door eighteen times.
I’d always watch her mouth when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked
when she talked;
when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges.
At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off.. And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off.
She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her.
Some mornings I’d start kissing her goodbye but she’d just leave cause I was
just making her late for work...
When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking...
When she said she loved me her mouth was a straight line.
She told me that I was taking up too much of her time.
Last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place.
She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but...
How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touched her?
Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t.
I can’t – I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her.
Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin.
I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars...
And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on.
I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel..
How she turns shower knobs like she's opening a safe.
How she blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out…
Now, I just think about who else is kissing her.
I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once — he doesn’t care if it’s perfect!
I want her back so bad...
I leave the door unlocked.
I leave the lights on."
Neil Hilborn

An eyelash on my cheek.
I caught it and blew it.
With the wind.
A star shoots across the sky.
I tied a knot.
A four-leaf clover.
I almost stepped on it.
11:11.
Says my Casio digital watch.
A coin lying on the sidewalk.
I flipped it down the well.

Fingers crossed.
Eyes closed.

I feel lucky.
I wish for you.

Her kisses were moonshine
and bullets, three shots
to the heart, like a rose
on the canvas of morning,
like art, an eyelash on a poem
that always makes me pause,
three xs at the bottom of a page.

The glaring orange and red vermillion rays stretched over the mountain top and city skyline in the humbling spectacle of nature’s dawn...
Lifting away the frightful, cold and deathly nuances of the city by night...
The dull glaze of the concrete motorways,
Spun and circled around the growing organism of steel suburbia...
Filled with a meandering stream of colourful cars
Feats of engineering beauty
The blaring noise of traffic drowned out the natural stillness of nature’s beauty...
In the peak rush hour of a Cape Town mourning....

To the left of me...
Stood the deathly profile of a street urchin...
The little lady...
Body thin and frail, hands out-stretched in a sinewy leather grasp...
Warn and tattered rags for clothes...
Burnt and ***** face....
Yet still able to muster a look of hope....


I lifted my fingers to my mouth
And let out a shrill and deafening whistle
Drowned away by hooting and the hum of the engines, spurting noxious fumes,
Defiling the air....
She turned with a vigorous jolt
Raised eyebrows and a head turning smile...
I ushered her towards me with my outstretched hand, well manicured nails
Not a wrinkle of hardship characterising the clean skin
In the burning rays of yet another hopeful morning...
At least for me.

As her body was moving, all I could see were her eyes...
They pierced me, danced for and contorted the world around me....
A hazelnut brown painting, embedded in a small circular hole in the skull...
A gateway to the emotions
Connecting everyone, regardless of age, race or even stature...
As I gazed, captivated.
I saw compassion, longing, loss, warmth and passion in her eyes – the whole spectrum of humanity
In two small but infinitely deep pools
Cascading into a never ending abyss of emotions
Of pain, suffering, a little joy and infinite hurt....
Then I blinked...
And all those emotions, those connections and our future...
Were gone in the simple gesture of a fluttering eyelash
As she looked the other way...

The car lurched forward yet again...
With the flash of a green light and safety of movement
To the other side of the intersection
My hand still outstretched holding the crumpled buffalo note
My contribution to a severely needing hand
Lost with the bustle of life continuing, and leaving behind all too weak to keep up....
She began to scurry away, back to her pavement

I looked back...
The little lady gone.
Lost forever

I’ll shatter another wishbone
If it means you’ll answer the phone
I’ll scour for pennies on this deserted street
If I’ll be lucky enough for us to meet

I’ll stay up all night gazing for a shooting star
If I can rest my feet on the dash of your car
I’ll pluck every eyelash from my eyes
If it means I can wish away all the lies

But the dandelions won’t work
You’re throat is sealed with a cork
I’ll still wish for one more kiss
Don’t you see? It’s you I miss.

Here, this is my voice box. Please be careful with it because I only have one, its not as loud as yours, and sometimes it cracks when I get nervous,
but for only three minutes of your time and the part of your mouth where it turns up at the end, its yours.

I've always known you thought of this world like a trading post. That each person you meet is absentmindedly trying to bargain away your most important parts,
every piece of gold and silver you have to offer, every wink of eyelash, ever giggle
As if we are untouched, untarnished miracle,
but a rarity waiting to be stolen.  

This life, you say, won't always just give you what you want.

It is all a game of operation that you are so good at.
You know exactly how to pull away people's most important parts without compromising your own.
Giving crocodile tears and counterfeit laughter for footsteps to walk in time with yours.

You guarded your heart like a bird in a cage,
so when it stopped singing, you began handing out ribs you thought were expendable like housewarming gifts in hopes a little company would bring its song back to life
Only I think someone stole it.

Because even though no buzzer went off, you seem to be looking for something to fill that space,
something like someone else's passions, something like power,
Something that is big enough to push out your chest like the way used to, when you still believed that people were worth more than the sum of the parts the could afford to give you.

Now you're all barter and a handshake with fingers crossed.
All swindle, all smooth talk, all scam
and no fairness.

But I am not a pawn shop.

There are things in this world I will forsake for the right deal:
the blush in my cheeks for an extra set of hands,
the grace in my step for the memories of dancing,
lend me your tenderest glance and I will give you every grown up tooth you can see when I laugh
But we are not made of infinity.
You ask for my lips to shape your favourite words
But never my eyes or my shoes to stand from my point of view.
You say their is a beast in my heart, you can see its outline in my jaw,
You offer your tongue to use as a whip
train it not to whisper or sing or beat out of time like yours.
Like the figure eights it creates in the rhythm I dance to were eternal.

I cannot afford to trade this.

I knew a boy who sacrificed his lungs for some peace of mind, and lost both.
I've seen girls who traded in liver and saline for a kiss that they would never be able to call their own
I have watched you chip off your vertebrae one by one, hand out pieces of your spine as currency to keep people off your back.
But I know when something is worth more than the sum of what you are willing to give me.

If you want me to tame the flutter of my heart,
Best bottle up your tears and make room for my own,
or else give me a reason to smile.

You're the eyelash
                                                                    scraping against my eye.

One day I'll carve you out
              and blow you gently into the breeze.

                                            Or, with bloodshot eyes,
                               I'll well indifferent tears
                                                                   and stream you down a cheek.

               I'll make you the wish I swore you to be.

Our affection was a spider web
As we slept in our separate homes
With our spirits inhabiting
Both bodies,
The gossamer was swindled
Carefully in between each
Eyelash and around each
Finger and toe,
Tiny filmy stings
Had our hearts connected.

I felt a pang inside me
When loneliness tugged
Your arms and plead with you
To follow it.

I wondered
As my tear ducts
Emptied themselves
Onto my cheeks,
How do I cope with
Sadness that is not
My own?

I have felt the
Icy sleet
That is one a.m.
With sad songs
And emptiness in
All aspects of life
And I wish it upon
No one.

I want the sadness
Only to be mine
I want to be greedy
I want to steal it
From you
If only so that
I could see you happy.

Needle in the hay stack
The spin of the weather vane
I took a drink of you
And felt heavy to the touch
I lay back on my bed and opened up the dark
I woke up dead
Or maybe half alive
I miss the words
That came from your lips
Poems as mystical as a cloud of smoke
I allowed to twist around my fingers
Maybe I thought of them
Maybe not
Words like forests as deep and as dark
You skip from pool to pool of silver moonlight
Beaming through the trees
Singing a song I once heard in a dream
A bird
A whistle
As you snap your fingers
As you tap your foot
You never trip on
The terrible black roots
That reach up like fingers.
Somewhere far away or very near
You picked a flower
And placed it behind your ear
You sit cross legged a minute
As you drink your can of beer on the porch
You say you feel important and high up
Like angels found you and brought you back
To me
How I see the porch light
Reflecting your hair
As you twirled a lock and whispered
Mars is visible tonight
Red and bright
A shooting star
And you wish

On time with the cosmic dance of fire and color and rain
Earthquake Heartache Lust and Pitty
Your eyes glow in every dark alley
Of this sad quiet city

WHO knows what I know
when I have asked the night questions
and the night has answered nothing
only the old answers?
  
Who picked a crimson cryptogram,
the tail light of a motor car turning a corner,
or the midnight sign of a chile con carne place,
or a man out of the ashes of false dawn muttering "hot-dog" to the night watchmen:
Is there a spieler who has spoken the word or taken the number of night's nothings? am I the spieler? or you?
  
Is there a tired head
the night has not fed and rested
and kept on its neck and shoulders?
  
Is there a wish
of man to woman
and woman to man
the night has not written
and signed its name under?
  
Does the night forget
as a woman forgets?
and remember
as a woman remembers?
  
Who gave the night
this head of hair,
this gipsy head
calling: Come-on?
  
Who gave the night anything at all
and asked the night questions
and was laughed at?
  
Who asked the night
for a long soft kiss
and lost the half-way lips?
who picked a red lamp in a mist?
  
Who saw the night
fold its Mona Lisa hands
and sit half-smiling, half-sad,
nothing at all,
and everything,
all the world ?
  
Who saw the night
let down its hair
and shake its bare shoulders
and blow out the candles of the moon,
whispering, snickering,
cutting off the snicker .. and sobbing ..
out of pillow-wet kisses and tears?
  
Is the night woven of anything else
than the secret wishes of women,
the stretched empty arms of women?
the hair of women with stars and roses?
I asked the night these questions.
I heard the night asking me these questions.
  
I saw the night
put these whispered nothings
across the city dust and stones,
across a single yellow sunflower,
one stalk strong as a woman's wrist;
  
And the play of a light rain,
the jig-time folly of a light rain,
the creepers of a drizzle on the sidewalks
for the policemen and the railroad men,
for the home-goers and the homeless,
silver fans and funnels on the asphalt,
the many feet of a fog mist that crept away;
  
I saw the night
put these nothings across
and the night wind came saying: Come-on:
and the curve of sky swept off white clouds
and swept on white stars over Battery to Bronx,
scooped a sea of stars over Albany, Dobbs Ferry, Cape Horn, Constantinople.
  
I saw the night's mouth and lips
strange as a face next to mine on a pillow
and now I know ... as I knew always ...
the night is a lover of mine ...
I know the night is ... everything.
I know the night is ... all the world.
  
I have seen gold lamps in a lagoon
play sleep and murmur
with never an eyelash,
never a glint of an eyelid,
quivering in the water-shadows.
  
A taxi whizzes by, an owl car clutters, passengers yawn reading street signs, a *** on a park bench shifts, another *** keeps his majesty of stone stillness, the forty-foot split rocks of Central Park sleep the sleep of stone whalebacks, the cornices of the Metropolitan Art mutter their own nothings to the men with rolled-up collars on the top of a bus:
Breaths of the sea salt Atlantic, breaths of two rivers, and a heave of hawsers and smokestacks, the swish of multiplied sloops and war dogs, the hesitant hoo-hoo of coal boats: among these I listen to Night calling:
I give you what money can never buy: all other lovers change: all others go away and come back and go away again:
I am the one you slept with last night.
I am the one you sleep with tonight and tomorrow night.
I am the one whose passion kisses
  keep your head wondering
  and your lips aching
  to sing one song
  never sung before
  at night's gipsy head
  calling: Come-on.
These hands that slid to my neck and held me,
these fingers that told a story,
this gipsy head of hair calling: Come-on:
can anyone else come along now
and put across night's nothings again?
  
I have wanted kisses my heart stuttered at asking,
I have pounded at useless doors and called my people fools.
I have staggered alone in a winter dark making mumble songs
to the sting of a blizzard that clutched and swore.
It was the night in my blood:
  open dreaming night,
  night of tireless sheet-steel blue:
The hands of God washing something,
  feet of God walking somewhere.