as my fingers flicker through
the sleeping curves of your body
I find what I have always known to be true
you, and only you

as I arch my back to the moon
the splendid silver of the night a mirror
reflecting what I have always known to be true
you, and only you      

as I walk open armed into the ocean
swallowed by sea salt and tangled in mermaid hair
I am captured by what I have always known to be true
you, and only you

this is goodbye

keep it.

keep it in
your heart
until it burns

keep it in your
mind until it wraps
around your every
waking thought

keep it close to
your skin
until it blisters
every last inch
of your flesh

keep it anywhere, my lover
my trickster, my fool

just keep it.

the way I tread
on eggshells as
I run my fingers
across my body,

paper thin skin
that is agony
to touch

flesh that has
known fear, festering
hate and hysteria

to press too firmly
touch too deeply
know too closely

would be to
howl, werewolf
like, at the
moon

the pull of the
moon

the light of the
sun

the beat of a
heart

the becoming of
one

I trace the lines on
your back

as if they are a
map

to lead me to a
hidden land

the reach of an
arm away

how long are you going
to stay with me?

forever.

forever.

forever.

You see me
and think
I am alive,
hair, bones
and teeth
heart swelling,
shrinking, pulsing
blood

but kiss me
and you will
taste death,
lingering like
icing sugar
on my blistered
blue lips

Sadness lines these walls
the way that dust
lines the corners
of books you bought
when you had a
hunger for words,

now, the act of reading
them, smooth
as their covers,
effortlessly slipping
through your mind,

I am not my sadness,
I say, over and over
like a heartbeat,
a belief so vital
to my life as
the clenching of
that *****

and yet
and yet

I am sad

I understand the world
best as a challenge
a fight to win
or lose
survivor. warrior.
beaten and bruised
I understand life
best as a puzzle
something to be
unpicked and
pondered until
the pieces merge
together into a
jigsaw, jagged and
incomplete. I'm panicking
now, can you feel it?
feel it burrowing into
you like a root?
I will plant myself there
and grow. from your
ash stained heart,
a tree of pink blossom
flowers, blown
away in summer
but pretty for a
brief spring

I have broken the bars
and shackles of
faith

in a world
where repentance
is everywhere

and the fear
of God makes
prisoners of
us all

a woman
of God

I try
to be

but sin
is in
the air

as much
as salt
ia in
sea

my lust
licks
the heart
of my
lips

there are
body parts
I am blind
of

the shame
of being
thirty five
and never
know the
touch of
a man

drawing
a map
of the
world
on my back
with his finger
in my sweat

the arch
of it
when his hand
casually marks
Africa

A woman of God,
I am not

But a woman,

a tender lover
my head folding
into his neck
as if the angles
had been calculated
exactly, beforehand

I am earless
in the face
of the battlefield
that every woman
crosses, every day

I am clever
a devourer of booka,
article, savagely attacking
tainted tabloid trash

I am a Godless woman,
but a thousand times more
a woman than God could make me

After years of wandering alone
hearing mountains moan into
the sunset, uninhabited beaches
spread into the ocean like the
arch of the moon

I stand at your door,
sopping wet and weary
back bent from carrying eighty
litre backpacks across ancient
roads that only the locals
knew

I said to myself, I have found me

as the roots of the trees arched
around my feet, their rough arms
folding around me, the earth
moving to the beat of my heart
the wild bird song stinging
my eyes with tears

I said to myself, I have found me

but you stand their
arms outstretched
the laces of your shoes still untied,
(and it still infuriates me!)
the smell of vegetables, rudely unplanted
roasting in a metal ***

as my head moulds into your shoulder
like tar

No, you say,
you found your way back to me

I ask to be planted
into the earth
like an ancient
tree,

so that I may
shed my leaves
in the fall
and grow
new skin
every Spring

I envy the
Oak, Birch and
Ash, ancient
trunks that do
not stain with
the agony
that lingers
in the air

palpable

the rain
is full of
it and yet
they do not
wither and
decay

root me
in the dirt
so that I may
too, feel
pain

and survive it

Another sleepless night
Memories piercing
Fear and shame

The paralyzing thought
That I’m the one to blame
Guilt, what did I do or
Say to deserve it

What did he steal
That day?
More than my dignity
And worth

Every piece of my
Heart, body and soul
I am just a shell

Flesh and bone
Shaking through
Nightmares that
Twist the pit of
My stomach

That reach the
Black root of
my heart

How I do I simply
Put it behind
Me and move
On? As I am
Told to do

When I am timelocked
In that moment of
Terror

The world is turning
Spinning forwards
At breathtaking
Speed

Yet I am planted
Like a root
In history

I walk
this Earth
like a ghost
hand in hand
with shadows
and spectres
the yellow seas
eaten by industry
are the solution
to my thirst
the apples of
Thalidomide trees
the only answer
to my hollowed
belly hunger
I dare not stray
from the
undercity
of drug
stors and
disease
It is my home, now
as much as
anywhere is
I fester like
a great root,
planted, anchored, growing
from the dirt
of misery

My heart has fallen
open in your hands,

red and swollen
it beats

consumed with desire
and lust

the capacity to
swallow oceans

and skies
words scattered

in a handful
of stars

to lead me back
to you

The universe is vast and gray and infinite,
how do I take my place
in it?

how do I stand,
with my heart beating out
the rhythm of my life,
singing my past in
a simplicity so un -
becoming of it

I want to shout into the void -
I have come, I am woman,
flesh and bone, scars and stories,
I have known a taste of your
treachery and still
I stand before you

I  am Godless,
I shattered brick and mortar
metal and bars,
to be free of the weight
of heaven on my heart

oh universe, I am standing here,
at your open mouth,
a mouse in front of a lion

please acknowledge me

I have come this far,
across the hills of my hometown.
I took my boots off thirty miles ago
and have been roaming barefoot
like a feral thing.
In the distance I saw you, sitting on the porch,
as I grew closer I saw you were smoking
French cigarettes and listening to Cohen.
You stood up to meet me and
before you could speak,
before you could kiss me...

I have never had much luck with men
no, I do not **** the way they like it
my hair is ***** blonde, almost brown
my stomach is round

I do not want your love out of pity, or curiosity
but I love you enough to stop wandering
to wave away the mountains
to drain out the oceans

I will mould myself into the shape of you
so that when we're apart there is an
impression of the other on our flesh

I'll learn to ****, learn to love to ****
bruised memories will heal when your
sweat drenched hand slides down my glistening back

I will love you to your burnt orange core

I am more than my fears, he says

but he does not know
what lurks the the recesses
of my mind,

the demons that no other
has dared to dance with,
the monsters that no other
has wanted to tame,

I am bone shivering
cold, midnight darkness
without stars,

open skies that overwhelm
without landmarks,
with no point of reference
between what was and what
might be,

how do I grow from this pile
of ashes,
that I spent years wishing
someone would scatter
across the sea

I am more than my fears, perhaps
it is a leap of faith

but I dare not jump
(arms outstretched)
into the unknown

I dare not
I dare not

I
dare
not

Our names burn in the sky,
each tiny act of love crafted
into stars

constellations that paint
maps for travellers
to follow

our hearts a guide
for wanderers

I loved you as the first cigarette
burnt down between your
fingers

flicking ashes without
caring where they fell

lust consumed me like the sun
will one day swallow us
all

and now we are wild
fire, raging across
the night

I live
inside these bones
a memory that rises
and grows in the vast
cavity of my chest

my heart ripped
our, now clenched
in the jaws
of a ravenous
wolf

it’s teeth tasting
blood, my blood,
as if it’s ageless
as if it has the
power to sustain
anything except

myself

Your hands
are a cage
that tame
a restless
heart

his
unseen
hands
unlock bars
and unleash
a wild thing

I am a
bird in
flight
now

set free

the skies
are mine
to taste

the oceans
mine to
drink

I am man -
less

and blossoming

without
constraints
of love

You were a magpie

you stole the root of me
bare bones and arteries
and now I am

a shell
stood shaking
in my skin

forever

You sing songs from the dead sea,
echoes of long forgotten love
that burst like starlight,
scattered across a black sky,

I press your heart against my lips,
taste it’s bitter root of anger,
a spark of light that hit a shard
of glass, in the reckless summer heat

we are faithless, you and me,
yet still we believe in each other

Buildings have a language,
bricks laid with weathered hands
that once bake bread in their
Grandmother's kitchen, new face
wrinkled with kindness and
years,

the stones have stories
of wars, battles fought with
swords, blood blooming from
chests like flowers that have
been tendered with careful
green fingers,

walls rattle with memories.
whispers of forgotten love
that raged like wildfire for
a year, then died like summer
when autumn came and swept
away it's leaves in a red carpet
of indifference,

we cannot simply tear them down,
these bricks, these stones, these walls,
turn them into dust and blow them
into the sky, for then to catch on clouds
before scattering like ashes into the ether

we must love them, keep them,
treasure each crack, each nook
and cranny,

as if our lives, too, are
the very foundations
of castles

or the simplest
wishing well

Even the stars
shake when I
speak your name,
a woman bursting
her heart,
red and raw,
arteries like arms
wrapping around
a wound, a bloom
of tulips
in my chest,
a cavity of
dirt, a wisp of
seaweed stretching
a lonely hand
into the ocean,
begging a wave
to answer

Your breath is weak
on the back of my neck
as we pretend to sleep,

my heart is heavy,
sinking, as I know
I shall be leaving
soon,

as the moonlight
fades and the tiny
specks of starlight
disappear,

we are two broken
hearts that could
not heal each other

we were always tethering
on the edge of love,
lust melting like honey
on warm bread,

don't you feel it
darling? the dull ache
of loneliness that hums
between us like
electricity,

there was a spark, once
as I looked into your eyes
and felt like I was home,

but now we are ghosts,
hollow, without substance,
empty spaces where there
should be

everything
we've ever said,
ever done,
ever tasted,

the memory of
your lips,
your mouth,
the shape
of ecstasy

and now, my love
the come down

harsh, a stripped fluorescent
light, skeletons shaking,
bonds and bones rattling,
the fossils of a
prehistoric romance

buried in the earth,
forgotten, left to be
discovered one day,

but not today.

I can't drink or smoke
when you leave

I leave the windows open
tempting a breeze
to bring in the scent
of flowers and summer
rain

They remind me
of you

the way that rain
falls onto a flower
and drips, drips
down into the
soil

the yellows
and oranges of
the petals
burn

our faces reflect
in the dirt and I know
that we'll never be
clean again

We used to sit up and talk
all through the night,
sleeping only when
our mouths ran
dry

at first your voice
was the only bit
of you that I
could stand

but soon,
your eyes
began to shine
bright blue
and wide

and I fell
into their
waves

now I stare
into their sea
and wait
hopeless
for you to
speak again

like a deep
sea diver
running out of
oxygen

I drown
and choke

and wait

for the water
to claim me

The first days of Spring are out,

I run through the woods
weaving in and out
of the trees

kicking up
green leaves
and the heads
of yellow flowers

I like to think that you're
still chasing me

one night you didn't
come home and I knew,
somehow, that you
were gone for good

we used to play
here, before
the winter came,

we'd sit for hours
reading each other

writing love letters
with sticks
and stones

my skirt catches
on a branch
and throws me
back, back
to that night
and I remember
that now it's
just me and
the trees
for company

He pressed a twenty pound note
soaked in whiskey
into my hand

This is for the taxi home

my legs are dead
and bruised

hair ripped out
at the roots

black leather boots
scuffed at the kick

make it look like
an accident

a broken glass
on the floor

a red wine kiss
at midnight

frozen lips that
whisper lustful
moans

and I remember
the first drink
in the park

the innocent brush
of a hand against
a thigh

as I take the money
and run

He asked me how I've changed.

I guess it starts with the little things,
a braid instead of hippy locks,
an inch taken off the heel,
white wine instead of shots

I hold my keys between my fingers
and spread them out like claws,
I keep my back to the traffic
and turn my head to the floor

I practise screaming in my living room,
until my throat turns to sandpaper,
I drag my nails across my skin
until my skin soaks red

I check the doors and windows
once, twice, three times
and then repeat
repeat again

I take sleeping pills when it's daylight
and drink strong coffee when it's dark,
I tell my friends that I'm busy that night
and hope they stop asking me out

I never risk the last train
or stop for a driver with his window down,
I don't approach the homeless
or acknowledge my name

I try not to think about the big things,
the shard of ice that sits where my heart used to be,
a shame that threatens to **** you,
a rage you can barely contain

I tell him that I haven't changed at all.

It was a plague passed
through kisses, I never
thought it would ****
me, but I woke up
one day, dead limbed
and deaf to everything
except the sound
of waves crashing against
the peaks of my heart,
and I couldn't move
without you

Fireworks sent me to you,
red and green, burning
stars and flower
crackers

I try to hold onto that.

I spy
a split back
dress, blanched
skin, from where
I sit

That used to be me,
with your hair
in delicate knots and your
knees creeping out from
under your skirt

When did I stop
shaving my legs?

I let myself
go, drift away in the
same way that cats will
wonder away from
their home to
die

As memories claw
grasping and teasing
with black and white
photographs of a girl,
a butterfly that
reverted back
to a larva

They'd been living together for two years now but he still had difficultly placing a name on their relationship. It was always complicated, born of a reckless impulse to do something dangerous and a more simple indulgence of curiosity. He couldn't help it, from the first glimpse across that cold lab, to that wink as he left the room, Sherlock fascinated the Hell out of him. He found himself focusing on the tiniest of things, the tone of his voice, the way the vowels and consonants clashed together, the way that the sullen silences and manic experiments blended into the fabric of the life that they lead.

People called them friends or flatmates, occasionally people would speculate if they were really lovers. The truth was that they were all as bewildered to the true extent of their relationship as he was.

Certainly, there was an elemant of truth in all of the assumptions. Technically, they were all of those things. In the quiet, 3AM born musings however, these words always felt inadequete, meaningless, compared to the feeling he got when he stared down at Sherlock, breathing softly and blissfully ignorant to the internal struggle of emotions, labels and expectations that he felt every night, woken up by some nagging doubt that clawed away at the fabric of his mind as he shared a bed with the man whose existance in his life was beyond explanation.

My camera clicks a little
less these days.
It doesn't forget that we are
no longer young.
The years we spent
kissing under trees, stretching
our limbs out to the sun,
skin crisping, blistering,
then peeling. Are gone.
We thought we were
solid and stern, that
we could easily hold off
the gusts of time. Now
we sleep most of the day.
Occasionaly, we take a walk
(in the shade) the trees have
aged too, but they still
stand proud. We are
more like a branch
it's cast off in the wind.
My finger pauses
over the shutter, I
want to mark this
moment, to see if
the picture is less
kind once it's
taken.

We ran from our homes
like a flood

Our limbs burning
as the pavement
fades under our
feet

From city
to city
we move

Like a shadow
creeping out
to reach

The sea

I don't want to hear it.
How he found you, you're eyes locked
over plastic glasses
of cheap wine

the way your feet
dangled slightly
swinging from
the stool, avoiding
the floor

how he offered you his
coat, streatched tight
across his slightly
too wide shoulders,
the way the sleeves
blocked you from
the cold in a grip
that was almost
firm, but not...

you knew the price
of an illegal cab fare
just not the cost
of not riding one

orange lights and exhaust fumes,
the engines humming like a bird
that's dying, still fighting
to breathe, like black
beasts of metal and
sulphur

it could have been over
in seconds, a wave of your
hand away from never
starting

instead you wrapped
the coat tighter, like a cage
with soft walls, pockets
stuffed with shot glasses

and took him home

My father hated him
at sight

Stolen glances from behind
his crystal whiskey glass

He prefered the last
one

Tall and dark and
strong

A real man

The kind of guy that looks
like he carries photos of
his kids in his wallet

With spare twenties and
condoms

My mother keeps
quiet

I know she liked him
too

But she noticed the bruises
and fat lips

She knows the smell
of pressed powder
over black eyes

I really was her daughter
back then

A broken bone bond
between  her child

She hates that I got
out

That I refused to carry
on their name

She looks at the new guy
whose arms hang over my shoulders

My father smokes cigars
and sighs

Trying to work out if his hands
could make fists

If his knuckles could
smash against my skull

He can't stand to see me
with a man who lets me answer back

A man who gives me his coat
when it's cold

He likes to see a mirror
reflecting back his
brutality

Telling him that his daughter
is safe (in a way) from
the wolves that walk the pages
of fairy tales

It's that time of year again,

The air is warm,
breathing delicate
wisps of breeze
across my skin

I was cold
inside my heart,
shrank and barely
beating

My head is my own
theatre, frames flashed
and frozen, projecting
every still

I try to put the ghosts
to rest, bury them like
bones in a garden

But they wake up,
like vampires,
when the sun sets

Words catch in
my throat, lungs
take in their fill
of air, but there's
not enough oxygen

To feed my brain.

I do not want my heart to burn with longing,
for this love to be a fire that roars when our fingers touch,
our lungs shrinking, our coughs and splutters
mixing in the air

I just want to feel warm.

In Spring we dreamed of
flowers, yellows and oranges
and fresh grass, green
with envy for the
Summer

We held hands and
kissed along beaches
whispering secrets
against sunsets
on sand that burnt
the spaces between
our toes

It's November now
and we don't look
at each other,
our backs pressed
together, the outline
of our misery
blazing, racing the
flames of the
bonfire

I was dreading the winter,
the stale smell of Christmas fairies
that have lived in the attic
all year

I knew that if you left
then
I wouldn't follow you
out into the snow

I cling my arms
around your shoulders
like tinsel, draped
and static, falling
flecks of colour

I couldn't think
of a present so
instead I wrapped
myself, tight,
against the frost
that threatened
our future

swallowed down
all the things you did
that made my skin
scream, forgave
myself for drifting
away from you
and decided
to stay

by your side

as you poured whiskey
into the expensive glasses
we were saving

(not the cheap ones
we smashed against
walls)

touched drinks

and sat

with my head fitting
(a little too tightly)
into the crook
of your arm

As I sing I draw rings
around your name
turning my voice into thunder
that shatters, cracks,
breaks the window
glass

I am seeing inside you,
blood, heart, bones

Sensing storms that
haven't reached the sky
yet

My body aches for
disaster, a fire, a hurricane
a drizzle of acid rain

I am feeling the weight
of rage, of goodbyes
that shake to the depths
of our souls

I will carry you around
like a bird with broken wings

I won't let you
fly
away
from
me

My face is the front gate
of a rotting town

people sweeping
through streets
like a Plague
that kills with
disproportionates

my eyes the ticket-men
who check scraps of
yellowed paper for
numbers, ripping
of corners for their
pocket

my ears hum
with the sound of
Thalidomide bees,
collecting nectar
from dying flowers

I can smell scattered
chemicals and poverty,
children without shoes
and old ladies who
knit with rheumatic
fingers

I keep my mouth shut
to stop the spread of this
war

I let my head fall forward
sometimes, or shake

but

I will not open my lips
for anyone

It's five-thirty
when I walk
barefoot and
hesitant

eyes wide open
against the
dark

towards the place
I last kissed
you

I can hear
your lungs
lift and fall

lift and fall

like I fell
for you

I am wearing
one of your
shirts

it's sleeves hang
loose

I can almost
wrap them
around me
twice

my stomach
clenches and thinks
of breakfast

cups of coffee
and newspapers
to argue over

our kitchen is
bright and clean
red gingham curtains
like the ones
little girls

dream of

scrubbed wooden
table and chairs

each with a leg
that needs to
rest upon
a book

I'll pass you the
milk and sugar

smile into
my cereal
bowl

tell you where
you left you
car keys

stand in the
doorway waving
you off to work

I reach down
through the black-
ness

to where I think
your blanket
is

searching for the
soft corner of
warmth

my fingers touch
nothing but
air

my feet are
freezing

I hear the clock
strike six

and wake
up

It's an echo of war

a battle no-one can
remember fighting

or winning

but we know that
we are the
losers

somehow

even if we can't
see it

I wanted you the way that
January leaves need the
snow to water out
their dry, cracked
veins

but now you're in my
blood, the way that
an infection crawls
into an open wound,
plants it's seeds and
grows there

every lungful of
air is mixed with
sand, sticking like
dust to the back of
my throat

sandbagging
our voices, forcing them
to be content with
the odd restless
word that slips
through our lips
whilst we're sleeping

silence is our
live in and she
runs a tight ship

tight enough
to keeps us touching
no matter how hard
our limbs try to fight
their way to
freedom

Who knows the darkness?  she says.

I do, a quiet voice, in my head.

the sinking feeling in my stomach when I crawl into an empty bed

the frozen fossils of lovers tossed loosely
on the floor

I claw

from the bottom of my black, holed well
the air escaping like a slither of silver

the bars to my cell

I am a monster without teeth, who feasts
on the loneliness of my thighs

and I am walking, step by step, with the beast

of depression and anxiety, it’s pen pal friend

who I have known for years, through letters

but it now has a body to tend

I crawl

like I’ve forgotten how to walk,
across cobblestones that feel like boulders
beneath my feet

I have forgotten to eat

What do you have to be sad about? She asks.

As if sadness is a currency,
exchanged between  haves and the
havenots

whilst I am in knots.

I get her point, I guess

but I did not choose this never ending death

You shatter
the silence
with your
smile

I run my fingers
down your
smooth bank

no imperfections
just imprints
of a lover’s
gentle touch

I hold my
head to the
side

when I
think of
you

and try to
curve my lips
into the
memory of
us

My demons stir,
a light that bleeds
through a crack,
and they are alive
once more, to torment
my every waking thought,

the threads of time
align against me,
stitching together to form
one shuddering roar
from within,

my honey trap of memories
are theirs to flick through,
to select at random which
one they want to play,

I am Godless in a faith filled world,
a host for a sinning parasite,
that wraps me up in curses
and black magic, killing me
with shame and self disgust
that's palpable to the touch,

I have danced with the Devil tonight

He turned wine into water
and took the sea
into his mouth -
salt filled and raging
wild with waves

but I am not a mermaid
and I do not sing a
siren song, to lure
him in

I smoked a cigarette
and waited for him
to turn that mouthful
back into wine

sharing an alcoholic
haze of memories
untangling

we are destined to be
one more sip away
from oblivion