i'll do up your shoelaces
and make you up a new name
i'll stay until the veil thins
or until it doesn't

We stare out the x gate
She wants to go home
and I don’t want to be here or there or anywhere

he sees his angry daughter,
i see a suppressed dragon who birthed another.
and fire drips from the wall,
thick oil,
burning down the whole house.
the colour paints my face in streaks of pain.
he talks a monologue,
i put the dishes away;
quickly, careful.
take his plate for it to rot in the sink,
for another woman to clean.
he snatches the soy sauce dish away from my
breaking fingers.
whatever he wants
is a command.
my eyes haze up,
and look up to his.
he has stitched spiders over his lenses.
my mouth blends with my skin,
sewn at the edges,
when his gapes like a black hole.

no arms,
no.                   legs,
no                        head,
no surface  to latch on to;
butchy                        boy.
water                     curls
around a    floating body.
the pressure       suffocates
the idea                      of its
                                   limbs.
faulty                                
fish                    bladder.
no        mouth.
no dream.

wanted blue hair
mum says she can return it

but he refuses
takes the can out my room

no words
he faces me like a shadow

throws it in the trash
out the front

i think of
how ***** i would be
if i dug through *******
to get it back

-

i’m wearing my favourite clothes
he says they aren’t good enough

so i’m shovelling
the fabrics through the mirror
so done with appealing
to his eyes

peel the leggings off my skin
and my shirt off my arms

under the layers
shielding me from the weather
i am a pulsing dragon, waiting, waiting
waiting, waiting
to claw it all
off

I unlaced my shoes
just to colour the strings in

seeing your world
with no eye contact.

walking in sync
across the
golden bridge.

knowing each other
with the lights
broken.

knowing the signal
when the volume
is switched off.

talking without speaking
a single sentence.

glancing to the left
when they look to the right.

their compliment,
their opposite.