Dinner table,
Bowls of light,
Stage fright, lilies,
No appetite,
Dark absences nibbling
Right through my eyes
Like black rabbits pulled
Out of Truman Show skies,
Provoking the question
From those sat up front –
Is this a trick you’re pulling -
Is this one of your stunts?
But no amount of smiling
Will do –
Nod all you like.
They’re onto you.

Christmas Eve,
Sister’s house,
Black eye,
Ulcerated mouth.
Divinely tickled-
By Miss World!
A pinecone and mistletoe
Christmas hurled
Down en suite toilets
Porcelain pink,
My face makes love
To the bathroom sink.

The most squalid Little Lord
In the county, me,
Summer blooms hold
No charms for me,
So I try to apply my
Favourite smile
And travel a few more
Country miles
To a chemist that doesn’t
Know my face.
I browse a bit
(Condoms, spectacles case)
Then I try to
Convince the pharmacist
That I need two
Bottles of
Gee’s Linctus.

The cruelest boyfriend
I ever had
Gives head to a toilet roll
And his fingerpads
Are bordello yellow
From greased nicotine,
This ******* in Primrose
Exhales smoke in a stream,
And I try to remember what
Buttercup said,
His baby’s breath whispers
Wilt in my head,
Something about purity
Something about loss
Something about cleanliness
Something about God
Something about something
That I should tick off as regrettable,
But one flower can make everything
So *******
Forgettable.

My heart beats wild and without rhythm
as your tender fingerpads brush
my embered cheeks.

Yet I want to claw the skin you touch
til my face is set ablaze with blood.

I yearn for the blood burn of your lips
at the base of my neck,
breath warm and sweet as tea.

Though I grip my neck in despair,
choking that you cannot love me.

Every time I catch your gaze,
tensions rise from the pit of my being
like freed birds.

Still my eyes run as late spring rivers
as your tongue cuts me like fresh poultry.

My mind flurries with crisp thoughts of you,
each gentle and pure as fresh snowfall.

Nonetheless, I can only endure
the blue-limbed blizzard of self-loathing and blame
that should not be mine.

Toes curl in ecstasy
like vines in bright sunlight as we become one,
how I always dreamed.

Now my dreams turn to nightmares
as my blistered toes carry me mindless through
the desert of complete isolation.

My own warm fingers brush your face,
down the slow ***** of your nose
to the petals that are your lips.

However, they hover,
hesitant,
unsure that the frame they grace
contains the paradox I love.

i wonder if you’ve noticed,
her fingers are always stained with
black or blue ink,
sometimes purple,
color seeping through the
swirls on her fingerpads,
color imprinted on her milky skin,
forevermore.
you asked why,
she said “writing”
...you never stopped to ask
what kind of writing stains your fingers
everyday?
well,
it’s the kind that takes you over,
the kind that controls you
completely.
the kind where
you don’t know what words will come out of you
until
you see them written on the page
in your own handwriting.
it’s the kind of writing you couldn’t stop,
even if you wanted to.